Police in Denmark has closed down the cardsharing.dk website, for the first time confiscating the domain itself.

The website has long been a thorn in the side of local pay-TV operators Canal Digital and Viasat. The site had offered ‘pirate’ subscriptions to the platforms through so-called card sharing over the internet.

The public prosecutor for serious economic crime said this was the first time that police had taken over a domain in connection with a criminal case.

In order to carry it out it was necessary for the attorney general to ask a court for approval in transferring the domain.

The case came to the attention of the authorities following the intervention of the pan-Nordic anti-piracy organization STOP.

Separately, the Swedish culture minister Lena Adelsohn Roth says the government there intends to introduce legislation making it illegal to watch pay-TV without paying the fee.

It intends to make devices for unpaid reception of pay-TV channels illegal.

Card sharing networks are already illegal in Sweden.