Thai police move on streaming sites

The police in Bangkok have reported that Department of Special Investigation officials have shut down several major websites that illegally streamed movies and football matches with links to online gambling and pornography.

The Bangkok Post quotes police reports that over 120 officers were involved in the operation, which targeted 19 locations around the city and resulted in a number of websites being shuttered. Police spokesmen said the raids were mounted after public complaints regarding movie and sports copyright infringements.

Among the websites were sakkarinsai8.com, which provided streaming services to Doo4k.tv, Movie2free, bigapp.tv and other websites, charging fees ranging from 70,000-100,000 baht a month, DSI chief Paisit Wongmuang told a news conference.

Movie2free was the largest online movie website in Thailand, with more than 25 million visitors a month. It provided free online films, but ran pornographic film advertisements and had illegal links to football gambling sites.

Membership fees were 250-300 baht a month, Pol Col Paisit revealed. He said that evidence collected in the operation suggested that the websites caused more than 4 billion baht damage to copyright owners, and that around 20 individuals were engaged in operating the offending websites….most of them in their ‘twenties and holding degrees in computer engineering.

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