LatinNews Daily Report - 15 March 2012

Chile/Region: On 13 March Chilean authorities arrested a 26-year-old student, Cristián Alvarez Rojas, who administrates a popular Argentine streaming site, Cuevana, in Chile. According to Chile’s intellectual property rights investigations unit (Bridepi), Alvarez Rojas was charged with violating the law on intellectual property rights & electronic crime; he was released on bail. The arrest comes after the US’s Home Box Office (HBO) premium cable network filed a suit against the site. Bridepi explained that they had found 198 pirated DVDs and a number of hard drives containing illegally obtained copies of films, which he freely streamed on the internet from his computer. A Bridepi officer, Roberto Villaroel, said they had an arrest warrant for Alavarez Rojas issued by the prosecutor’s office in Pudahuel. Villaroel pointed out that the Chilean authorities know that the other administrators of the site are eight Argentine nationals, all living in Argentina, and that they use servers located in Canada. In a brief statement to the local daily La Tercera, HBO said that it “applauded the actions taken by the Chilean judiciary”, adding that HBO was “confident that the authorities in other countries will also take measures to ensure that HBO-Latin America’s intellectual property rights” are respected.

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