Kinox.to

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Kinox.to
Still Best Online Movie Streams
Video-on-Demand - website
languages German , English
operator Kastriot and Kreshnik Selimi
editorial staff Kastriot and Kreshnik Selimi
Registration not mandatory
Annual income several million euros (estimate)
On-line July 10, 2011 (currently online)
https://kinox.to/

Kinox.to is a German-language video-on-demand website for movies, series and documentaries. Kinox.to is the successor to kino.to and, according to Alexa Internet , was one of the 50 most visited websites in Germany in January 2017 . According to a ruling from December 2015, Kinox.to's offer involves the unauthorized exploitation of works protected by copyright.

Search for operators

At the end of October 2014, a special police unit searched an apartment in Pansdorf near Lübeck. The presumed 21 and 25 year old brothers Kastriot and Kreshnik Selimi are said to be the operators of kinox.to as well as the similar portal movie4k.to . Both portals claimed the legitimate successor of kino.to.

The Selimi brothers were not found, however, because they had left Germany in July 2014. The Dresden Public Prosecutor's Office assumes that the brothers were the “ ringleaders of a criminal organization ” and accuses them of extortion , coercion , arson , copyright infringement and tax evasion . An international arrest warrant has now been used to search for the brothers . After three years on the run, the younger of the Selimi brothers surrendered to the authorities in Pristina in July 2017 , the older one is still on the run.

The two alleged accomplices and hackers "Eddi" and "Avit" were arrested in 2014 in Neuss and Düsseldorf. "Avit" is said to have blackmailed the boss of Kino.to by hacking his portal. As a result, the Kino.to operator felt obliged to hire him as a "security officer". Other streaming portals such as Movie2k.to are also said to have pushed them from the market through hacks. Among other things, reliable information captured against the operator was passed on to the Society for the Prosecution of Copyright Infringements .

Kastriot and Kreshnik Selimi are said to have had contacts with the Russian “cyber mafia”. Kinox.to was rented by a company called Akrino Inc., which is said to be in the orbit of the Russian Business Network (RBN), which a few years ago is said to have contributed to half of the world's Internet crime through malware, botnets , identity theft and credit card fraud .

Network blocking in Austria and Germany

On October 3, 2014, following an injunction obtained from Constantin Film at the Vienna Commercial Court , the kinox.to domain was blocked for all Austrian Internet providers. Previously, an objection from an Internet provider in this regard had been rejected. Also Vodafone cable Germany is bound by an injunction from 1 February 2018 to block access to Kinox.to for its customers. Vodafone had taken action against the preliminary injunction at the Munich Higher Regional Court, but the OLG confirmed Constantin Film's view.

process

The trial against Avit O. began in October 2015 with the reading of the indictment at the Leipzig Regional Court. The General Public Prosecutor's Office in Dresden accuses Avit O., who comes from Kazakhstan, of commercial copyright infringement in 767,000 cases. Furthermore, he is accused of coercion, computer sabotage and tax evasion. He is said to have attacked illegal competing portals several times with so-called DDoS attacks.

The investigators assume that Avit O. - together with the Selimi brothers - also runs the hosters who hold the movies and series. They are said to have taken in "large sums". The investigators assume that Avit O. copied the entire database and the programming of the website from its predecessor Kino.to.

In December 2015, the judgment against Avit O. was announced on the basis of a mutual agreement (Ref .: 11 KLs 390 Js 9/15). He has to be imprisoned for three years and four months for "unauthorized use of copyrighted works in 2889 cases" and computer sabotage. Avit O. confessed and the prosecution dropped further allegations.

Due to a preliminary injunction obtained by Constantin Film at the beginning of February 2018 and issued by the Munich Regional Court , Vodafone Kabel Deutschland has to block the Kinox.to offers for its Internet customers. Customers were first redirected to a blocking page. Since March 2018, the page has been shown to Vodafone customers as "not available", although this is only a DNS block.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alexa: Top Sites in Germany , accessed on January 16, 2017.
  2. ↑ a b Kinox.to operator to three years and four months imprisonment. In: sueddeutsche.de . December 15, 2015, accessed December 23, 2015 .
  3. ↑ http://www.mz-web.de/multimedia/streaming-portal-kinox-to-illegale-millionengeschaefte-im-kinderzimmer,20642986,28967314.html
  4. ↑ Kinox.to: Two arrests in North Rhine-Westphalia, brothers on the run , October 27, 2014, NTV
  5. ↑ a b c d e Florian Fagel and Lars-Marten Nagel: "The business behind Kinox.to is so brutal", Welt am Sonntag, November 2, 2014, pp. 22-25 ( online )
  6. ↑ These are the kinox.to brothers that the police are looking for , focus.de, October 31, 2014
  7. ↑ Suspected Kinox.to operator taken , SPON from September 12, 2017
  8. ↑ Barbara Wimmer: Network blocks have been in force in Austria since Friday. In: Futurezone.at. Futurezone GmbH (FN: 353153v; HG Wien), October 3, 2013, accessed on October 21, 2019 .
  9. ^ Legal dispute with Constantin Film: Vodafone must continue to block Kinox.to . In: Spiegel Online . June 15, 2018 ( spiegel.de [accessed June 17, 2018]).
  10. ↑ Florian Flade and Lars-Marten Nagel: The mafia methods of the Kinox.to gang. In: welt.de . November 1, 2015, accessed November 1, 2015 .
  11. ↑ dpa: Kinox.to co-operator must go to jail. In: FAZ.net . December 15, 2015, accessed December 23, 2015 .
  12. ↑ Network blocking: Vodafone has to block kinox.to and save customer data. Retrieved February 12, 2018 .