The website Download Area closed by the national gendarmerie – The World

The force estimates the damage suffered by rightholders to 75 million euros. Three people have been remanded in custody.

The site of illegal downloading of music, movies, and games Download Area has been closed, has announced on Monday 28 November, the national gendarmerie. It is one of the platforms in france illegal downloading the most important, if not the most important.

Seven people have been arrested, three have been in custody at the research section of Toulouse, france, was entrusted to the Agence France-Presse (AFP), in the evening, a source close to the investigation. The origin of the referral, a complaint in November 2014 members of the Association for the fight against piracy audiovisuelle (Alpa) and the Society of authors, composers and publishers of music (Sacem), said this source.

the closure of The site was carried out after investigation by the centre for the fight against crime-digital (C3N) of the national gendarmerie. Last week, it had already led to the closure of What.cd, a very important site for sharing music, after a complaint from the Sacem. On Zone Download, the force estimates the damage suffered by the persons entitled to € 75 million.

Read also : Accused of hacking, the site for sharing music What.the cd closes its doors

Five million euros in damages and interest

The site, which had an average of 3.7 million connections per month and 11 000 visitors per day and previously available at the address http://www.zone-telechargement.com now displays an error message.

On social networks, many users rebelled to the closure of the platform, with the creation of the hashtags : #JeSuisZoneTelechargement.

In September, the administrator of the site, pirate OMGTORRENT, established in 2008 and active until the end of 2015, was sentenced to five-million euros in damages and interest in and to one year in prison with eight months to farm for the large-scale dissemination of movies and music pirated.

Alpa had also been the source of the reporting and the investigation of the research section of the gendarmerie of Reims was possible to locate the site hosting the download the home of the parents of the webmaster of 28 years.