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BitTorrent Tracker Hosting Illegal Says Dutch Court

Leaseweb, the former ISP of BitTorrent trackers such as Demonoid, What.cd and Waffles.fm lost the appeal against the Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN. The Amsterdam court concluded that Leaseweb has to permanently shut down the BitTorrent tracker everlasting.nu, and hand over the admin’s personal information.

bittorrentLast year the court decided that Leaseweb had to take down everlasting.nu and hand over the name and address of the owner because the site structurally facilitated copyright infringement, as pointed out by BREIN.

At the time Leaseweb was hosting dozens of torrent sites, including Demonoid, mybittorrent.com, btmon.com, btjunkie.org, seedpeer.com, what.cd and waffles.fm. Although Leaseweb decided to appeal the decision, the torrent sites were no longer welcome, and were asked to find a new ISP.

Yesterday the appeal was denied, as the Amsterdam court again ruled that everlasting.nu was facilitating copyright infringement by allowing their users to download copyrighted content via torrents hosted on their site.

Leaseweb’s defense argued that Everlasting was not facilitating copyright infringement, because the torrent files itself are not copyrighted. However, the judge ruled that this was irrelevant, since the files are an essential part of the download process.

Leaseweb’s lawyers further argued that the tracker is not necessary for the download process, that the torrents could be mislabeled, and that there are also BitTorrent clients that do not upload (downloading music and movies is legal in the Netherlands), but their arguments did not impress the judge either.

At the moment it is still unclear what this means for future cases, such as the upcoming court case between Mininova and BREIN. In the ruling the court places a lot of emphasis on the tracker, as an essential component of the infringement process. Mininova does not operate a BitTorrent tracker.

It is however very unlikely that Leaseweb will ever host a BitTorrent tracker again. The ISP that once was a safe haven for most torrent sites is most likely done fighting.

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  • http://www.eZee.se www.eZee.se

    Never used everlasting.nu, but i hope they used common sense and gave the host crappy admin details.
    Needless to say, they should be far away by the time BREINless try to get their slimy paws on them…

    Totally crazy how much damage BREIN has been able to do in Amsterdam of all places… one would think that someone would toke up and the lights out for some of BREIN’s employees…

  • afgod

    ….sigh
    stuff is changing rapidly here lately, it’s depressing

  • nurgle

    sadsad
    sad
    sad
    sad
    sad
    sad
    sad
    sad
    sad

  • Wowserious?

    wow I wonder how many safe havens are left?

  • rasha

    i take it the judge knew nothing about bittorrent.

    how unlucky for Leaseweb

  • lolwut?

    Oh well, chances are, we’ll lose the battle over torrents. Of course, something new will be invented to replace it shortly thereafter.

  • jack

    Meh, move your tracker’s. A few of these cases seem to make it through the court system. Not nearly enough to make a dent though.

    All this does is compel the geeks to find better, faster alternatives.

    Props to Leaseweb for standing up for their clients rights.

    J.

  • TehStalker

    eh?, just move the site to a country where no one gives a damn… Ukraine for example..

  • annoyance

    They fell into a burning ring of fire
    They went down, down, down
    And the flames went higher
    It burns, burns, burns
    That ring of fire
    That ring of fire

  • Other

    “wow I wonder how many safe havens are left?”

    Plenty.

  • Number 9

    @9

    I hope you paid royalities for posting that.

  • Anonymous

    lol

  • haha

    oh gnoes its teh internet police!

    -indiana gregg
    ‘The Jessica Simpson of the internet’

  • Anonymous

    What we must do is we must embark on a letter-writing campaign and embark on protest campaigns against small anti-piracy targets, first, like commonsensemedia.org, which clearly expresses backwards sentiments: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/newsletter/archive.php?id=2003-09-12

  • US

    BREIN is getting really annoying out here…
    Get all those trackers to Sweden or something, where there aren’t any dumb.ss organizations like BREIN

  • #YLS#

    I think what really needs to take place is a new underground network for tracker operaters…

    Say you had a couple sites over the entire world… Use a virtual server platform in each one… If laws become a problem transfer from one site to the next over a VPN with the trackers only using a little down time.

  • P2P Lover

    What a joke BREIN is! They got lucky by getting a ignorant, technology stupid judge. I wish that judges would learn how about how the technology works before issuing a verdict!

  • kdsde

    so may i ask this bitterballen eaiting judge:
    what is your opinion about the responsibility of google then?
    Since searching for downloads using googles capabilities would then be an integral part of the illegal downloads too.
    given the judges reason (as far it is accurately represented in Ernestos post here) needs google.nl close shop on august 1st?

    IMO there should be a law in every internet connected country that does make it a violation of due process if the judge that rules about a topic has no serious clue about it!

  • kdsde

    if this technology ignorant judge has a bankrobber to sentence next week will he rule that Ford will declared illegal in .nl since the robber used an old ford mustang as getaway car.
    Or will he sentence the head of konijklicht(sp?) cartography institue to go to jail with the robber too since his institute provided the robber with the streetmap he used to find the bank to rob?
    If this judge would rule in a “real world”-case with the same reasoning he did in the “virtual world” I bet his superiours (unless they are mentally fucked up like him too) will ask him to retire ASAP!

  • Anonymous

    Somebody please start a website dedicated to changing people’s minds about copyright. Commonsensemedia.org is one example of a group of people deluded about what is right and what is wrong:

    http://www.commonsensemedia.org/newsletter/archive.php?id=2003-09-12#story4

    It is very important to change whatever minds we can so that we can establish a voting coalition. Somebody please do this.

  • Anonymous

    And don’t just tell me to do this instead. By asking someone else to do th is, I have already made it clear that I am one who cannot do this. Nothing can ever begin by people saying “you do it instead” to all requests. I am making a request for someone to take action, and nothing can ever happen by telling me to do it instead.

  • greylion

    Maybe the judge got a nice little beach house in return..

  • CRK

    Well, the internet is used for downloading files, so it should be declared illegal, and all the providers should be taken to court.
    After that, all PC manufacturers should be jailed, because the computers are used to download copyrighted materials from the internet.
    And then, electricty should be denied to all ppl, as they might have a computer and start downloading stuff…

    So here we are…in the stone age!

  • ul

    That’s good. We need to clean out the filth on the internet.

  • ■Дамеркнскихпжвать■

    Nice! When are they going to take torrentbytes.net and torrentleech.org offline?

    　　∧__∧
    　　ﾘﾘﾟ∀ﾟ） 　
    　　( つ旦O　そっし～♪＆挑戦界嫌動憂慮最業帯電
    　　と＿)_)

  • Jasper van Weerd

    the host will always have a bank account, you can fake your name easy on bank accounts for free… so, I think they have personal info available.

  • Smokey McPot

    there are plenty of hosts that will take prepaid or “gift” visa cards.

  • Jiggy-Ninja

    I was wondering when someone would make the argument that while torrent files don’t directly infringe copyright, they do participate in the process of infringement.

    I’m not saying that I support this decision, but in defense of the judge under current copyright laws his reasoning is justified. He’s not stupid because of this decision. In fact, from what I read it seems he has a fairly reasonable understanding of how Bittorrent works. Torrents don’t commit the crime, but they are accomplices.

    However justified the judge might be though, I don’t support this decision. The digital revolution and social computing are here and P2P technology is fundamentally rewriting all the rules about the manufacture and distribution of any good that can be represented as digital information. You cannot kill digital “piracy” and it is foolish to try. All you can do is adapt.

  • One question

    Why do people that work for BREIN feel safe to walk the streets?

  • JIm Beam

    LOL, who cares what some stupid kangaroo Dutch court says LOL. What a joke.

    JT
    http://www.PRivacy-Center.net

  • Anonymous

    @28
    So you’re saying you should just ban the internet, huh? What about Google, should Google also be banned?

  • Jiggy-Ninja

    @31

    Hell no. I said the decision was justified under the current laws. I never said I like the current laws.

    Copyright needs huge reform in the wake of the digital revolution and P2P technology.

  • John

    The internets just about dead now anyway, fucking Corps and lawyers are destroying the beauty that was the internet.

  • Anonymous

    We need to start a website for all the pro-file-sharing people to gather and plan actions.

  • Myztry

    I just use the media sharing built into Windows Vista to illegal share with other people…
    (Besides audidence size, what’s the difference?)

  • neokake

    Why no one thinks on using hosting of south america, here are lots of sites that share everithing, we are so behind of internet laws.

  • David Bradley

    Dutch law is quite bizarre, you’re allowed to have sex in public parks, but you cannot let your dog off its lead. You can smoke a joint in a brown cafe, but not tobacco, and you can buy any kind of gratification you can think of in the red light district of Amsterdam but you can’t share files…

  • AboDabo

    No panic.
    Help is here http://www.turnofftheinternet.com/

  • Anonymous

    I think that the morons that are constantly suing, (unfortunately) have an advantage in court due to the fact that a majority of the judges don’t have an unbiased idea of what torrents are about. They would only get told one side of the story and once again, the idiots succeed and this is a definite advantage to them.
    ———————————-
    http://www.savetheinternet.com/

  • Aninhumer

    @Everyone bashing the Judge

    I don’t think it’s fair to say the Judge has to understand the technology thoroughly before entering the courtroom.
    If the case of either side is based on how the tech works, then it should be their job to explain that to the Judge.
    Any good Judge should listen to this explanation and make his decision with the new knowledge.
    It is unreasonable to expect a Judge to know everything about everything just to be able to sit a case.
    However, if the Judge did not pay attention to the explanations then at that point you have an excuse to criticise him.

    Also as @28 said if the law includes “facilitating copyright infringement” then there is probably nothing wrong with his judgement, just something wrong with the law.

  • Anon

    I think this is a signal to all torrent tracker admins: lock your shit down! Use fake details and a service like WebMoney that will allow you to submit payment through less tracable methods. As a user of many trackers private and public I say this to you: we really appreciate all that you do, but its not worth you going to prison or getting huge fines! Clean up your acts, stop posting your pictures in the forums, don’t tell people your IRL name, and above all use fake payment details. The powers that be are angry as fuck that the information age has become the free information age. We love what you do and it isn’t terribly hard to protect yourselves. Trust me, we can deal with small amounts of downtime if we know our favourite uploaders aren’t going to jail!

  • shibirian

    so let me get this straight; filesharing and infringing copyrights is forbidden and evil, but selling child-porn and zoophilia-porn, guns and pot on any of amsterdam’s streetcorners to anyone who wants (without a license or else) is alright and good.

    the people netherlands really suck. big time! >:-(

  • Har har me harties

    rofl @ 42

    This ruling doesn’t mean anything. I’ll still support fileshares.

  • Belligerent Engine

    Still rolling with TPB. Hasn’t let me down yet.

  • Xer

    Someone needs to explain these guys something about truthfulness.

    http://crankdatshitup.com/pages/social_ladders/how_to_be_cool/honesty_a_core_life_skill.html

  • Anonymous

    So what does that say about guns and bullets? (Old argument) Do the manufactures there facilitate the committing of a crimes with weapons? Do we need to shut them down? I just am concerned about this ruling and how it may effect other areas.

  • Anonymous

    I am not very good at website design, but I have attempted to create a pledge for people who are willing to struggle for a cause, so that there might be a chance that we could take action collectively.

    It is at http://www.28chan.org/pledge.php

    What do you people think?

  • Jimmyy

    (downloading music and movies is legal in the Netherlands)

    What about uploading?

  • Kenny Kenny

    It is illegal duh.

  • Will

    Decentralized trackers sure are nice! ;)

  • Anonymous

    If you people want to sign a pledge to declare your intentions of wanting to be part of a struggle to reform copyright law, here it is:

    http://www.28chan.org/pledge.php

  • Danny

    I say well done for Leaseweb for fighting.

  • Sarah

    I think this is hilarious because just yesterday everyone was criticising Indiana Gregg for asking questions about this very issue. I think it’s fucking hilarious. All those people saying no, it will never happen. Then, there was other ISP’s like Virgin sending letters out to their clients and also that now Youtube has to hand everybody’s IP addresses over. I think that your IP address is similar to a passport in some ways. I can’t watch shows on BBC iplayer when I’m not in the UK. They block me from doing it.

  • unknown

    all sites will be shut down!
    icludes the following:
    mininova
    torrent bytes
    torrent damage
    torrentzilla
    torrent-matrix
    bitnova
    newtorrents
    influx torrents
    moviex.info
    eztv
    below have been warned only secoudn time they will go:
    rapidshare
    megauplaod
    zshare
    megashare
    netload
    http://www.rlslog.net

    !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    they all have been taken to court when these shut down boom the p2p file sharing system will crash!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    basically downlaoding piracy software in the future will be impossible

  • Bumblebee

    I see there are people making comments here that are far brighter than the lawyers representing the accused. I think the lawyers should resign together with the judge or I shall suspect there may be something smelly between the two parties!!!

  • sinner

    review and guide at

    http://techfuel.wordpress.com

  • contis

    PUT IN JAIL THOSE F…. TORRENT BASTARDS WHO’S STEALING OTHER’S PEOPLE WORK AND SWEAT! BUST THEM UP AND TAKE ALL THEY HAVE EARNED BY PIRACY!

  • TT

    Anonymous writes “It is very important to change whatever minds we can so that we can establish a voting coalition. Somebody please do this.” I am open to hearing your arguments. As of this writing no one has convinced me that copyright such as it is is fundamentally wrong. But I always try to be open to new ideas – please bring them forthwith! At the moment I don;t hear any quality arguments defending the rights of copyright pirates that sways me in the least – just a lot of people asserting without justification that they should be allowed to have work that others have spent time and money on, for free – even when it is clear that the providers want to be paid for their work.

  • elvis1

    pretty shitty

  • Christopher

    “As of this writing no one has convinced me that copyright such as it is is fundamentally wrong.”

    Copyright isn’t fundamentally wrong. However, the extremes that this ‘fight against piracy’ is being taken to is wrong. Let’s face facts: we have been being GOUGED by the movie, music and game companies for YEARS now, so long that most people don’t even realize that they are being gouged anymore because they have grown up being gouged by these industries.

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