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Anti-Piracy Outfit Chases Torrent Site Domain Registrar

After targeting companies that dare to provide hosting services to torrent sites, Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN has now started to apply pressure to a domain registrar. The tactic seems to work as at least one site, Torrentbit.nl, has decided to change its domain name to prevent being shut down.

torrentbitTorrentbit is a medium-sized torrent site with about 100,000 daily visitors. Like many other torrent sites hosted in The Netherlands, Torrentbit has found itself in the crosshairs of BREIN. In February the anti-piracy outfit sent a request to its host NFOrce, demanding that the company take the site offline.

NFOrce communicated this request to the owner of the site, who had no other option than to move his site to a hosting provider outside The Netherlands. The alternative – facing legal battle against BREIN in court – was not a viable option for the site’s operator.

Soon after BREIN’s request, Torrentbit moved to a Swedish hosting provider, hoping that its issues with BREIN were solved. Previously, many sites have moved outside The Netherlands after threats from BREIN, including BTjunkie, Demonoid and What.cd.

Relocating has solved the issues for the aforementioned sites, but not for Torrentbits. Aside from using NFOrce as a hosting provider, the company also acted as the domain registrar for the .nl domain the site was using. So, in a second attempt to shut Torrentbit down, BREIN sent a request to NFOrce to make the domain unavailable.

NFOrce did not comply with this request immediately, but saw no other option than to do so if Torrentbit’s owners did not make their identity know to BREIN so they could fight this out between themselves. Again, this was not a viable option for the Torrentbit administrator.

“In order to be confident of my site’s future I decided to change domain to a .net extension and make it not so dependent on Dutch laws and existing court decisions,” Torrentbit founder Torro told TorrentFreak when explaining the recent domain change.

Torrentbit continues to operate just fine, but one has to wonder where this will end now domain registrars are becoming a target as well. For now these actions seem to be limited to The Netherlands and Russia, but in the United States the RIAA and MPAA are lobbying for registrars to disable ‘infringing’ sites as well.

It is obvious that BREIN is very creative in using verdicts of previous court cases as ammunition to put pressure on webhosting companies and also domain registrars. With two hosting providers having lost their cases against BREIN in court, it seems that most others would rather comply than put up a costly fight.

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  • anon2

    and they are not trying to control the internet? bollocks! what all this has been about from the start, with filesharing used as an excuse. no web site is safe. joining forces is the only way to stop them. before long, every site will be accused of being and ultimately closed down because they are ‘infringing’. infringing in what way? whatever way they can think of at the time!

  • ¬&„8ÏEÕŒa¢c.J.;F

    What law is there that allows for force to be used to have a domain name changed? Is there one?

    If there is no law, then why give in to the demand? What can they do to, via court, even if you don’t turn up, and even if you’re unknown, if there isn’t already law in place to allow for them to do that?

  • dncholas

    The best way to stand up against these antipiracy groups is to attack the giant media corps that pay them to do so. We need to 1st reveal to the masses what companies are paying these slimballs to go around threatening websites and people, who are the customers of their crap. I think if more people knew about the truth and the false claims being made about lossed that don’t exist it would wake people up and hurt the media giant’s business all around.

  • rantingme

    @2 You obviously haven’t a) read the article properly or b) ever registered a domain in your life. You are required to provide legitimate information to your registrar, the penalty of not doing so is to lose your domain; as stated in the article he was asked to provide legitimate details (so BREIN could then take him to court) or forfeit the domain. He (wisely) chose the latter.

  • Larry

    Come on guys. Why aren’t there any clever guys out there to stop this nonsense from the MAFIAA? Can’t millions of head come up with a legal way to battle these extortionist greedy p1gs?

  • NeoNeoNeo

    by Larry

    Come on guys. Why aren’t there any clever guys out there to stop this nonsense from the MAFIAA? Can’t millions of head come up with a legal way to battle these extortionist greedy p1gs?

    It’s because they can change the law. They have your money to force change, e.g. Digitial Economy Bill in the UK. And they can afford to take anyone to court.

    If people were sharing films and musics via the postal service, they’d go after Royal Mail, UPS, DHL, FedEx, etc. They’d be taken to court, no doubt. But no one is taking the postal service to court when TRUE criminals are sending mail bombs, weapons, drugs and God knows what else using these couriers.

    It just doesn’t make sense to go after ISP, hosting, naming service, etc.

  • NeoNeoNeo – Correction

    by Larry

    Come on guys. Why aren’t there any clever guys out there to stop this nonsense from the MAFIAA? Can’t millions of head come up with a legal way to battle these extortionist greedy p1gs?

    It’s because they can change the law. They have your money to force change, e.g. Digital Economy Bill in the UK. And they can afford to take anyone to court.

    If people were sharing films and musics via the postal service, they’d go after Royal Mail, UPS, DHL, FedEx, etc. They’d be taken to court, no doubt. But no one is taking the postal service to court when TRUE criminals are sending mail bombs, weapons, drugs and God knows what else using these couriers.

    It just doesn’t make sense to go after ISP, hosting, naming service, etc.

  • Anonymous

    Low-cost Domain registrars like GoDaddy have in the past been very quick to pull the plug upon copyright accusation, as its just not worth it for them to fight an expensive legal battle over a $10/year title.

    The absolute worst was the .tk domain. Several sites have had their .tk domain sold out right under them.

  • MyAss

    Suck on this BREIN.

  • Anonymous

    Changing domain name is not a big deal.

  • easy

    registrars cannot allow illegal activities. most have clauses in their legal terms that prohibit copyright infringement. combine that with no ID of their customers and they will not win a legal battle.

  • spoiler

    dodgy torrent sites spoil it for the others

    dodgy hosting providers spoil it for the others

    dodgy registrars spoil it for the others

  • gorehound

    “Come on guys. Why aren’t there any clever guys out there to stop this nonsense from the MAFIAA? Can’t millions of head come up with a legal way to battle these extortionist greedy p1gs?”

    Do what i am doing and get more to do it too.
    1.do not buy any new corporate films/music
    2.if you need that stuff find it used
    3.no going to the theater,etc.

    Bankrupt the asses as they will understand only one thing in this world and that is MONEY.

  • Rboy

    The funny part is all the money thrown at fighting file sharing will never be recovered. These agencies the RiAA the MPAA, brein and others have done such a good job of convincing the the media companies that they are losing money that they the media companies are shoveling hand fulls of money chasing a ghost and keeping anti-piracy people employed.

    If the internet stopped no media company would make anymore then they are now. Those who file share are the ones who would borrow from friends or visit the library they ARE NOT POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS!. Those who file share would live without if they could not otherwise get it for free.

    I am aware of no effort to date that has made a single bit of difference. I am sure that all the money collected all the shut downs have not result in even 1 cent more going to the rights holders. None of these agencies if audited could show they have produced any benefits what so ever to the rights holders.

    The word copyright infringement has been perverted just as libraries have never been guilty of it neither are filesharers. No one in the community profits directly from copyrighted works and no one tries to claim a work created by someone else. I have never ever seen a file sharing site advertise come to our site because we have a specific work. They make a little money from visitors coming to the site not from selling or advertising a specific work.

    All the judges are dead wrong when they claim a site assists in copyright infringement because there is no infringement only the sharing of culture and ideas.

  • Goten

    @13
    true that

  • Anti-MafiAA

    Just use a Whois Protection and you’re done.

    http://dedihost.in/ offers free whois protection for all domain names.

  • NeoNeoNeo

    by easy

    registrars cannot allow illegal activities. most have clauses in their legal terms that prohibit copyright infringement. combine that with no ID of their customers and they will not win a legal battle.

    Torrent sites do not infringe copyright material. If users use the tracker to let others know of a file that they have no permission to share, then the tracker is not responsible. It is merely providing a service. If people break it…

  • exposing mafiaa . org

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wfOg-9FLow&feature=player_embedded THE MUSIC INDUSTRY EXPOSED – Devils Night (Part 5)

  • us

    supr annoying

  • luciferCor

    off topic :

    h**p://mashable.com/2010/04/22/hitler-youtube-downfall/

    h**p://vimeo.com/11096415

    h**p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use

  • Unauthorized Content Consumer

    I don’t see the point. I mean the file sharing is just gonna keep on happening.

    Speaking of which…I better boost the bandwidth to the .nl domains in my uploads. xD

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  • duane

    Internet companies should crowdfund legal protection from predatory companies like those in the entertainment industry.

    I for one would gladly donate to fight the companies that are trying to ruin the internet.

  • Sehal

    Godaddy has a bad reputation from when they pulled the child model sites offline with no warning. I wonder why someone doesn’t put up all those child model sites back up really as they are legal.

  • old timer

    Humm…the only reason someone needs DNS or the domain groups is so that they can type out a legible address like…www.cnn.com

    Taking down DNS servers will not solve the issue as the above address can be added to you host file as 157.166.224.25. You don’t really need DNS…It just makes it easier for the unwashed masses.

  • neostyles

    Uhm, did I miss something? No matter where a site is being hosted, it can be accessed anywhere. US copyrights can still be stolen anywhere thanks to the internet. Copyright is an international legal concept and companies have the right to ensure that their property is protected abroad.

    Every time I browse these sites, I am astounded by their disregard for people’s property. It’s hard to believe how little moral compass they have. The sheer amount of stuff that they are handing out is just hard to believe.

    People love to justify things with fair use, but they have no idea what it is about. Fair use is actually for things like articles when you are citing them. It is mostly used for factual work.

    Bankrupt the asses as they will understand only one thing in this world and that is MONEY.

    What a silly pipe dream. It amuses me how people try to convince themselves that they are going to boycott all forms of entertainment. Easy to say as long as you have easy acess to all the free content you could ever want. But trust me this is going to change.

  • Unauthorized Content Consumer

    @25 Apr 23, 2010 at 06:24 by neostyles

    “trust me this is going to change”

    What’s going to change? Do you and your lawyer friends have a trick up your sleeves?

    Remember. There are multi-millions of us, and only a small privileged few of you. By our sheer numbers alone, we will always defeat you no matter what.

    Keep dreaming buddy.

  • Unauthorized Content Consumer

    […]
    Your response is awaiting moderation.

    *sigh* and yet the spammers and all the first-tards can do as they please.

  • old timer

    25 neostyles,

    I actually don’t download movies or music. I am just interested in the net neutrality, if a show is available for free from advertising sites like Hulu in US which is blocked around the world…since it has now been released to the internet even though they think it is restricted to the US, anyone can watch the shows on Hulu.

    I think within 10 years you will see a complete different media distribution model and production. Look at MGM now bankrupt for producing crappy stuff. Most stuff you can get on youtube or free are better that some stuff you can purchase. Creative people will always express themselves and because they won’t be a next failed singer like BS or LL, or a failed drug star that make a quick million…a lot of them will do very well if they have the passion within themselves instead of proped up by shill men.

  • @16

    ID protection does not help. Read ICANN rules.

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  • DO NOT FEED THE TROLLS

    @ neobaby even if it all stopped tomorrow( which it never will Believe me) I reckon anyone who is an half decent pirate has enough content to last for years and years.

    Like me I ave 6.6 terabytes of music, movies and games, My god it would take 6 life times just to go through it all.

    Would you like some for free neobaby?

    The industry is going down baby, to many people speaking out against the media mafia and their absurd claims.

    6.6 terabytes neobaby.

    Mwah.

  • Einstein

    I have tried to put myself in the MAFIAA’s shoes, and from that perspective the situation looks hopeless!
    How in the world is the MAFIAA going to put an effective fight against ALL torrent sites ALL OVER the world. How is it going to combat ALL the pirates around the globe.
    It is simply impossible.

  • Anonymous

    “It amuses me how people try to convince themselves that they are going to boycott all forms of entertainment.”

    Guess what?

    The boycott is on you moron just in case you did not notice. Where are the missing customers? Sorry but they are gone for good in a life time boycott.

    Trust me on this one, the boycott is expanding for good reason.

    Your disgusting “industry of parasites is losing customers by the 10 of thousands each month.

    Even if you managed to stop piracy which is impossible, it will still be the same thing.

    Ya! You are right. Things are going to change. Soon all your crappy corporations of anti-socials will be out of business and you with them.

    Good night!

  • anonymous

    @#26 there are millions of us. trouble is, we are not organised, not collected together, have no endless funds. when companies like google and facebook are just sitting back, together with 99.9999%of ISPs waiting to see which one is under the spotlight/hammer next, the entertainment industry is just going to continue on its quest. it is slowly, methodically picking off what it likes, as it likes until it gets to the stage that, even if amalgamated, there will not be enough companies left to do any good any way. the public has no chance of changing things because we can easily be ignored, proven by what happened in the UK over the DEB. once a site is down, it is down. this ’1 down, 10 back up’ is bollocks. the only way to win is for ISPs and other big internet sites to fight together now, before it is too late! unless, of course, that this is part of the overall plan as well. to make the public think that it is just the entertainment industry that is causing this, when in actual fact it is all major companies together, then sharing internet domination. control the ‘net’, control EVERYTHING! worth thinking about?

  • Ninja

    @13 well said. It’s interesting how far those MAFIAA clowns are willing to go to fight the so-called piracy but they won’t move a finger to provide saner prices and DRM free content their customers are asking…

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  • Jim Olmar

    LOL, dont these anti piracy idiots have anything better to do with their time? Sounds like they need a hobby.

    fbi-logging.tk

  • Anonymous

    Car analogy ahoy!

    So does ford/gm/honda/ect loose their site names all their dealer sites names since their cars actuall criminal purposes.

  • me

    In freenet, gnunet etc… where there’s no central choke point (a.k.a. central domain registrars), this abuse by BREIN of the DNS wouldn’t and couldn’t have happened.

    C’mon guys, why so lazy? Time to jump ship and join and help the anonymous overlay networks.

  • zaqw345

    If you put “A GE” and “MIN GLE” together, then you will get the url.

    It’s a nice and free place for Younger- Women and Older Men, or Older Women and Younger Men, to- interact with each other. Maybe you wanna check out or- tell your friends

  • cipher

    Hah, ridiculous. I wonder what Tyler would do.. hmmmm

  • JamSquad

    Internet is the free exchange of information. These guys need to lay off the torrent sites, and actually go for shit that’s bad, such as child pornography sites.

  • lol

    lol millions of heads come up with a way to battle..

    listen im pro file share.. but it seems alot of people are under the illusion that all the ‘peers’ care in the slightest about P2P political warfare.

    it is true, most idiots just want free sh!t. Im not saying its wrong, because its the industry’s fault and everyone knows it.

    but as far as people coming together? Get real.

    Most people only care about ways to GET FREE CRAP.

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  • hmm

    My first thought about this: BREIN is grasping at straws. They’re desperate. Nothing they do has had even a little bit of effect on file sharing. So now they’re trying every crazy crap they can thinks
    of. My advice to BREIN: Give up, keep the money your wasting on trying to litigate this. You won’t achieve anything substantial anyway.

  • err

    neostyles wrote: “US copyrights can still be stolen anywhere thanks to the internet.”

    Umm, no they can’t. If you think otherwise, please explain to me in detail how I can, for example, steal the copyright of a Nirvana song. I’m waiting…

  • err

    neotstyles wrote: “It’s hard to believe how little moral compass they have.”

    Well, lets see, the media industry has sued single mothers, has sued a woman with multiple sclerosis and even when they learned she’s physically incapable of operating a computer, they didn’t want to back down from the lawsuit. Then they said college students should drop out of college to pay them up.
    ^ Doing stuff like that, I’d look at your behavior first before lecturing others about morality.

    “What a silly pipe dream. [...] Easy to say as long as you have easy acess to all the free content you could ever want. But trust me this is going to change.””
    I wonder who the pipe dreamer here is.

  • err

    “US copyrights can still be stolen anywhere thanks to the internet.”

    They can? Then please explain in detail how I can steal the copyright of, say, a Nirvana song. I’m very interested to hear that one…

  • Anonymous

    re: obvious troll
    “It amuses me how people try to convince themselves that they are going to boycott all forms of entertainment.”

    We’re talking about boycotting the companies that feel the need to shut down the internet. That isn’t book publishers, or video game makers (who have dealt with computer piracy since the beginning). We’re talking about the RIAA and MPAA. The RIAA is mostly a non-issue at this point since CDs are a dead media and they’ve promoted crap artists for a decade. All they have left is the rights to old music which will become more irrelevant in the future (how often do people listen to songs recorded in 1920 now?)

    So what we’re left with is the MPAA and their big-budget Hollywood movies. Do people think the internet is more important than films based on comic books and childrens toys? I guess we’ll find out.

    #14 is right, the companies will never make back they money they’re wasting on anti-piracy. If they ruin the internet they will make themselves the enemies of the majority of internet users, who will support any actions taken against the industry.

  • snuk11

    Human beings need to copy each other to grow, is our nature, no gov or company should be able to stop this. Coping is our very basic instinct to survive no one should claim an idea and forces others not use it.

  • MS

    One tends to think of the Netherlands as being a fairly liberal country, liberal in the same way that Sweden is. But, it isn’t.

    It’s just as driven by commerce as the United States. America’s business is business. While some Americans have had the idea of attacking the Domain Name System, whether it’s in the name of preventing gambling or unauthorised copying, constitutional roadblocks get slung in the way, to balance out the competing interests.

    You can’t attack domain names, it’s an attack on free speech. You can’t attack domain names, it’s too broad, it’s overreach. You can’t attack domain names, it’s prior restraint.

    Unlike the US, the Netherlands appears to have no safeguards.

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  • Anti-MafiAA

    @29:

    Hell, there are no rules here. We’re trying to accomplish something.

    (Thomas A. Edison)

  • TerribleTony

    This is a totally off-the-cuff remoark based upon the first paragraph of this article. I haven’t read it all because I’m already darn angry, so be prepared for foul language in the next paragraph.

    Fucking cheeky fuckers. I’ve padded this paragraph out to make it look more like a prpoer paragraph.

  • Robert

    Perhaps more sites like this should go “underground” by requiring editing of the hosts file to access. Would stop a lot of technically inept people from using it, while closing one point of failure for the MAFIAA to attck.

  • Anon

    A few years ago I found out there are unofficial domain name endings does anyone know any sites explaining how they work ? Eg if .com & .info are legit endings the others could be say .bananas ( I made that ending up ) !

  • one country

    one country could make a hell of a lot of money by not giving in to all these laws being passed in other countries. The Internet Valley, safe harbour for almost any domain.

  • Anon.

    “registrars cannot allow illegal activities. most have clauses in their legal terms that prohibit copyright infringement.”

    Actually, that’s wrong. Most registrars are legally *required* to allow copyright infringement.

    It’s called the “common carrier” rules — if they make any efforts to actively prevent copyright infringement they become liable for *everything* their customers do.

    The laws say that the government or the copyright holders are supposed to go after the “infringer” directly, and that the registrars and the ISPs have absolutely no business acting as police. If they *do* act as police, they suddenly become legally liable for any failure to police, whatsoever, which would be economically catastrophic for them. (They’d probably all go bankrupt immediately.)

  • anon

    Demonoid is down for me UGH!

  • Jon in California

    I can’t reach Demonoid today either

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  • Anonymous

    Looks like rlslog was run into the same sort of problem; “RLSLOG.net was suspended by its German hosting company after removal request from law firm representing Universal Music, although we never hosted any files or copyrighted data on our server. Our site is strictly informative.”

  • b

    A similar thing happend to filelist.org and they were forced to change to filepost.org

  • Ray Boggiano

    Legal firms and legislation like this and the DEA in the UK are an absolute disgrace.

    The DEA is outrageously flawed. The negative repercussions on our society and economy as a whole hugely outweigh any potential gains from combating piracy in this way. It’s an insult to democracy by being so blatantly written and pushed through by lobbyists from the BPI and other “music industry” figures. It ignored the British judiciary system by assuming guilt in the absence of proof (IP addresses cannot prove guilt in a court of law). It jeopardises our young digital economy, by eroding the chances of gaining truly wireless cities, and removes any incentive to provide free wi-fi areas.

    What’s more, it is unlikely to have any effect on file-sharing, as is evident when you look at Sweden as a case study, where file-sharing has risen since their anti-piracy laws, just now it is encrypted. Instead the record companies who wrote this Act should be focusing on live music promotion as their primary revenue stream rather than protecting an old, out-dated business model.

    For my blog on the implications of the DEA please go to http://bit.ly/a5rnUk. Cheers.

  • BugArrore
  • BugArrore
  • jude12

    so will demonoid resurface?Can he leagaly open demonoid again?

  • ANNON

    Who gives a fuck i run a tracker have been now for over 3 years let the cunts catch me

  • Ownage

    “Who gives a fuck i run a tracker have been now for over 3 years let the cunts catch me”

    Correction, you wish you did, but your just a damn leech, now STFU.

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  • p2p fiend

    Any news on Demonoid being offline? Neither the site nor trackers seem to be working. Never a dull moment in the p2p world !! Have ya ever wonder how much money they spend chasing p2p users instead of making it. Ya think they would of learned by now.

  • Ambyr

    “All the judges are dead wrong when they claim a site assists in copyright infringement because there is no infringement only the sharing of culture and ideas”

    I prefer many programs not offered in my country, so I download them. They aren’t even available to purchase. I feel the only infringement I make is on the time the uploader used to make the torrent for my enjoyment, and to them I extend a hearty thanks!

  • Ty

    I can go to the library and read a new book, I can tape a program I missed, I can go to a friend’s house and watch a movie – all for free
    or
    I can download it. That’s my 2 cents

    Does anyone know if Demonoid will be coming back soon

  • bloody angry

    all this crap is really anoying dont these people know that this is how we as a species evolve they should maybe look at history nothing is going to stop it you can slow it down you can hinder it but eventually its going to bite you in the ass

  • Gratuitous

    God damn them all…

  • BTGuard - BitTorrent Anonymously

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