Greece takes a stand against piracy: a man faces prison for launching a torrent site 14 years ago. He’ll also have to pay nearly 12,000 euros in fines and legal fees.

More than a decade ago, torrent programs and download platforms were the go-to option on the internet. As streaming services became mainstream and legal pressure increased, most of these sites disappeared. Still, stories like this one keep popping up—this time, it’s about a 59-year-old man in Greece who’s chosen to remain anonymous.

Just last year, we saw a Korean company sabotage its own product and infect 600,000 users in a crackdown on torrent traffic. This time, as TechSpot reports, the spotlight is on Greece, where a man has been sentenced to five years in prison for running a private torrent site. On top of that, he’s facing a €10,000 fine and €1,800 in legal costs. The real shocker? His site has been offline for 11 years.

Jail Time and Nearly €12,000 in Fines

Back in 2011, the man in question launched P2Planet.net, a platform dedicated to torrent sharing. During its three-year run, it exploded to over 44,000 registered members, all with access to movies, TV shows, music, and even software via some 14,000 hosted torrents. But in 2014, he shut the site down to avoid legal headaches—and it’s stayed offline ever since.

According to reports, the man barely made any profit, but the court still found him responsible for enabling copyright infringement. Police raided his home, arrested him, and seized a hard drive for forensic analysis. The story also notes that the most popular torrent client among users was Azureus/Vuze, software that’s now long obsolete.

This marks the first time in Greek history that someone’s been sent to prison for BitTorrent sharing. The judge ordered him taken straight into custody—a decision that left everyone in the courtroom stunned. In recent months, Greek authorities have been cracking down even harder on piracy, despite the rise of streaming. So, even though P2P content is less popular these days, the owner of P2Planet.net couldn’t avoid jail for what he did over a decade ago.

Source: 3djuegos