Following a legal process of more than five years, a court in Lithuania has handed down its verdict against two alleged operators of streaming portal Filmai. After being found guilty, one man was sentenced to fines and a confiscation order of 200,000 euros. The second man was acquitted. Meanwhile, Film.ai is still online and remains one of the most popular sites in the country.

Numerous reports published by the European Union over the past decade have linked higher levels of content piracy with lacking availability of legal content.

Restricted access to legal offers fuels the perception among citizens that piracy is an acceptable option, which in turn leads to higher levels of pirated content consumption. One way to combat that is by making content available and raising awareness, through the EU’s Agorateka platform, for example.

Member State Lithuania has faced criticism for its high piracy rates, including an EU finding in 2022 that 43% of young people mainly access movies from illegal sources. However, when Agorateka sends citizens to the country’s “Buy Legally” portal which doesn’t appear to exist, that doesn’t help when the same EU report (pdf) found that 50% of people said they would stop pirating content if it was made available legally.

The rest of this article can be read on TorrentFreak.com

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