Swedish Torrent Website Rarat Ordered to Pay $440K In Damages

• A criminal complaint filed against Rarat for piracy has led to the operator being fined a hefty penalty.
• Information about the operators was handed out by PayPal, which was one of the official payment’s providers of the website.
• The website was taken down in 2016, and a sentence was pending until now.

A criminal complaint that was filed against Swedish torrent website Rarat has finally led to a sentencing after years of investigation. The official complaint was launched in 2013 in Sweden, and the local police made arrests three years later in 2016. A court case was filed against them, and the judge finally came to a verdict, ordering the operators to pay a fine amounting to $440,000.

Rarat operated as an invite-only website that might not command the large user base that some of the largest pirate websites do, but it caught enough attention for a police complaint to be filed back in 2013. Private trackers usually fly under the radar and go unnoticed by legal authorities, but the site managed to attract negative attention and arrests were made in November 2016.

Rarat released an official notice at the time of the arrest which read “This week Rarat was subject to a search, seizure, and arrest. This follows a 2013 complaint from a film company that tracked down our PayPal payments. Damages in the millions of krona are feared. The site will now be closed.”

The copyrights holders who are part of the Rights Alliance were being represented by Henrik Pontén. The Alliance includes members like Nordisk Film, SF, and Disney and they will all be receiving the fined amount after the verdict was passed this week.

The arrest was made possible after the Rights Alliance requested PayPal to reveal the identity of Rarat donations. After the information was handed over to the Swedish police, the Department of National Police Operations tracked down one of the operators of the website. Evidence was collected, and it led to the arrest of one of the other operators as well. Details about the case were not revealed as the investigations were at an early stage. With the case having come to a close, we finally know what happened to the operators.

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