BREIN Demands $70,000 Per Day Penalty For Usenet Community
Written by enigmax on July 02, 2009Earlier this year, anti-piracy outfit BREIN demanded the closure of Usenet community FTD. After negotiations between the pair came to nothing, BREIN declared FTD a criminal operation prompting FTD to take legal action against BREIN to clear their name. Now BREIN is counter-claiming against FTD, demanding $70,000 a day in penalties.
Founded in 2001, FTD is the largest Usenet community in The Netherlands with around 450,000 members. FTD and its software allows members to report material they find on Usenet along with its location. This material could include movies, music and TV shows and this made it a target for notorious anti-piracy outfit BREIN.
BREIN says that FTD operates illegally but the Usenet community and its specialist IT lawyer, Arnoud Engelfriet of Ictrecht law firm vigorously deny this and are now taking legal action the Dutch anti-piracy outfit. The background to the case can be found in our earlier article, and a more detailed report on the action against BREIN here.
Yesterday, while BREIN’s site was still supposedly out of action following an alleged (or Hoaxed) DDoS attack from Pirate Bay fans, it published a further report about FTD, which was hidden on its site away from easy public viewing. Strangely the same page at the time of writing is password protected and the report unavailable, but we have a copy and translation.
Entitled ‘BREIN Demands Closure of FTD’, the anti-piracy outfit went on to say that if FTD does not close it will require a penalty of 50,000 euros ($70,000) per day against the service, in addition to compensation and full reimbursement of costs. BREIN said that FTD “organizes and promotes” Usenet content, most of which is illegal.
BREIN then refers to earlier discussions it had with FTD, noting that it asked FTD to cease its “structural use of illegal content” in early 2009. The two sides had entered discussions to see if they could iron out their difficulties. Following on, FTD pro-actively modified how they operate to ensure that there could be no doubt as to their legality.
“After we made the changes, we got complete radio silence from BREIN. No confirmation, no rejection, nothing,” Arnoud explained. “Only after several days we found out what BREIN thought – but only by reading the online news. That was a huge disappointment.”
The news saw BREIN declare that FTD was a criminal operation in an article titled “You do not pay for it, it’s unlawful” and this led to FTD taking legal action against BREIN to try to clear their name by having their operation declared legal by a court. Now BREIN is counter-claiming against FTD.
Tim Kuik from BREIN now says that it is clear that FTD “continued their abuses unabated” and that the modifications they made were only made to hide the “true nature” of the site.
“It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” said Kuik. “FTD earn money with a system that exists by virtue of the huge supply of illegal content to Usenet.” Mirroring the disappointment felt at FTD, Kuik added: “It is disappointing but illustrates that BREIN’s outstretched hand has been cut off.”
So what exactly does this claim for 50,000 euros per day mean for FTD? Lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet told TorrentFreak that BREIN did not ask the court for damages. Legally they are barred from asking for damages – article 3:305a of the Dutch Civil Code says that an organization that represents the interests of a certain group can never ask for damages. They asked instead for a penal sum of 50k euros if FTD were ordered by the court to shut down but it refused.
“The idea is that a court can order you to shut down but you can ignore the court,” said Arnoud. “With the penal sum, you risk that the court will then sell your house or seize other assets. In principle that’s legal, but the amount is of course ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous also sums up my view of the BREIN counterclaim. Instead of addressing any of the points we raised, they simply repeat their standard rhetoric. Nowhere is the distinction made between uploading works and telling people that someone has uploaded a work for (legal) download. And downloading illegal uploads is legal in the Netherlands,” notes Arnoud.
“BREIN is not known for its careful handling of the truth,” he added. “They are a propaganda organization after all.”
Previously: TorrentReactor Users Suffer Rootkit Attack
Next: Playing Whack-A-Mole With Data: The Pirate Bay Lives On
48 Responses
70.000000 day madness
Well songs are 80,000$ a piece from the RIAA, so this seems fair.
what utter fools
I’d very much like to see the outcome of this battle. Could make NL a safety haven or hell for file-sharers, trackers etc.
stupid brien go steal money from somewere else.
They just have to be aggressive to confirm their existence right. Because they could be obsolete in the Netherlands untill the law prohibits downloading.
Probably just want to get headlines to influence the mass and current cases/judges.
@5 Well, then you’ll have to wait what ACTA brings. Because EU will demand to follow it up.
at #5
the netherlands already is a safe haven for file sharing it is where alot of sites and tracker are hosted i think the pirate bay has its hostig there as does mininova and apparently alot of usenet activity. id like to see the same happen in spain where non profit operation of copyright infringement is legal
what a fckin feasco ;P i love this stuff!!
where do they come up with these numbers? I mean how do they justify any of these “damages”? Its propaganda and scare tactics… for one, I am for it, guaranteed hilarity to watch them crash and burn.
to Aerilus
Sweden
what? no “cool story bro :)”?
These mofos are really getting out of hand with these astronomical “damages” amounts. It’s sickening.
do yourself a favor and get into private trackers. The best filesharing community on the net bar none is http://www.thepiratesociety.org you can thank me later ;)
Cool Story Bro :)
Sorry I’m late for this one, I was wanking
& i bet that 70K is going straight in briens pocket not to the artists they are supposedly fighting for.
BREIN = Pirates
Whoops forgot to add the / in break quote
Just boycott the industry they can have it all.
This for some may mean “Download even more without paying”
But I do strongly suggest people just keep looking for alternatives. This is a fight they(MAFIAA) can’t win.
I’d like to see the justification of that 70K
BREINless strikes again
brein trys something stupid they are breinless :-)
stop with this nonsense assholls!@!
Well, whether technically legal or not, usenet services like that should be forced to shut down where possible, IMO. Those guys are simply selling access to a massive library of illegal content. It’s for nothing than profit, none of which the content creators will ever see.
@19
oh there you are.
ima start an torrentsite, named breintorrents x]
bah, usenet is crap anyway, pay up or close, whatever dude
and i say that brain people are all wierd faggots that need to get laid
I hate to say it, but with vapidshare, tpb and mininova all struggling and now this, it seems the pirates are being outflanked by “Mr Smith” and the grey suits.
Are our days of unlimited looting and piracy as we know it coming to an end?
For years the US has been calling the statements of those who oppose its views “PROPAGANDA”.
I love how BREIN is now accused of being a PROPAGANDA organisation!
Let’s claim back the word and apply it to the real propagandists, the RIAA, Hollywood, IPRED, BREIN and the rest of them.
A bet:
How long before there is a Hollywood big budget film about some really EVIL fileshares/pirates who plot to commit acts of TERRORISM and PAEDOPHILIA….
They hide behind TOR, proxies and what not, but the brave and clever agents of the MRIAA, FBI and “Homeland security” eventually get them, just before they are about to kill Scarlett Johansen or Angelina Jolie.
It is revealed that they were taking orders from Kim Jong Il and were both Moslems AND Communists.
Luckily they were stopped in time thanks to brave US agents and all that secret code that Microsoft sneaked into Vista….
The world is a safe place again… THIS TIME…
TBC
(this idea is protected by intl copyright)
brein=nazis,fascist,dictator
why are they destroying the community and turning it into wasteland?
their psychopath…
they want to own us like cattle
pay up or we won’t be able to enjoy anything?
like kidnapper who hold someone for ransom
Hollywood is saying:
If people don’t pay for content, then the movie industry would die.
Well would the death of Hollywood really be such a bad thing?
I for one could live without it!
They’re full of propaganda and materialistic thinking anyway.
Sure, I watch the odd blockbuster, but my quality of life would be just the same without them.
And what if Micro$oft, Adobe and the like disappeared? No probs, go to Linux, openoffice, Gimp….
@ Pirates > RIAA
Too true man…..
Also if piracy is going to kill the movie/music industry, shouldn’t it have died years ago??
I mean we have been putting vinyl to cassettes & copying casettes since the 80’s
Burning CDs & DVDs since the 90’s
& now BT for the last 10 years, gee you’d think they’d be well & truly toast if all this so called piracy was doing damage.
Just doesn’t make sense when you talk it through.
Lies, lies, lies
MPAA/RIAA = PIRATES
@ 34 Jul 03, 2009 at 16:54 by Cordelia
Well they’re taking their time about it eh? By my reckoning if piracy had done all the damage they say, there would be no record labels or movie studios now.
If the industry is dying, I just wish they’d hurry up about it then we can all have some peace from these assholes.
fight back ,, like this u mean?? ;P
http://www.piratepartyofcanada.com/
BREIN are made up of people who are fkn CRAZY and need to put to sleep like the dogs they are..
Just pirate more stuff already LoL
here a help to make a wireless region heat map for your own pleasure it also includes ways to know what access points are open so you can have it for free.
http://www.ekahau.com/products/ekahau-site-survey/overview.html
ps: I wish I had a wireless connection I would let it open to payback all the times that a used others wifi to surf LoL
Quite amusing really. From reading the Dutch article, BREIN seems to be pretending that their demand has some kind of legal merit.
What’s actually happening is that BREIN (a foundation) is sueing that FTD be taken down, or else pay 50.000 euro a day. BREIN likes to pretend they actually have some kind of power, demanding all sorts of things, but in reality, they have no more legal power than you or me.
@2 lol
Arnoud says: “…Instead of addressing any of the points we raised, they simply repeat their standard rhetoric. Nowhere is the distinction made between uploading works and telling people that someone has uploaded a work for (legal) download.”
…………………
That excerpt describes Classic Troll Behavior. Trolls don’t care about truth or logic or honest discussions. Their only goal is simply to wear you down as you attempt to defend a logical viewpoint, over and over and over again. It’s disgusting behavior. But it certainly makes trolls easier to spot these days because they all lack any normal human ability to properly process information in any useful way.
Blech…hate trolls.
go support your local countries pirate party to really end the madness
time to take back our countries form these people.
50K euri fine per day for what exactly? For NOT breaking any laws???
Tim Kuik and his Stichting “brein” are clearly insane, now let’s see how corrupt the dutch legal system actually is by punishing people for doing things that are perfectly legal.
Usenet? People still actually use Usenet? I had no idea!
Riff
http://www.anonymize.tk
Last time I checked, FTD was free of charge. The only thing you needed to pay for was Usenet access.
The only way I could see FTD making money off what they do would be a partnership with a Usenet provider, which wouldn’t make them anywhere near the $70,000 Brein is demanding
Tim Kuik, you make me sick!
does brein accpet monopoly money for there funny idea
i demand back 70,001 per second for them being noobs
By the way with certain ip providers you can get free usenet
for more info click this link
http://www.usenettools.net/ISP.htm
usenet is the way forward and torents will become dead as more hd content is demanded by users fuck Brein also for usenet search engines free type into google nzb search and click on any wsite and download using a client like grabit
You dickheads knocking usenet clearly don’t know how to use it, while the longevity of content is limited to a certain number of days depending on your usenet provider the speed is consistently high and is only effected by your ISP package and peak time throttling.
Otherwise from a user perspective it is just like using torrents, you go to a site you download an nzb file and use your program to download it. I use sabnzbd, others use grabit.
To get my nzb’s I use nzbmatrix.com, and for setting up rss feeds I use tvnzb.com which has a new episodes feed where you can be sure you are only downloading brand new episodes of any program.
Another thing to remember is since it is not peer to peer you wont have the RIAA connecting as a peer and logging your ip, only your provider can do that, and any sensible provider wont log who downloads any particular content.
My ISP, virgin media provides a 7 day binary retention (yes my ISP actually provides me with copyrighted content, while sending nasty letters to torrenters homes) which is ideal for picking up brand new episodes of tv shows at lighteningly fast speed.
If your isp provides any binary retention, and you don’t use it for at least downloading tv show episodes your an idiot frankly.
Hmmm I know http://www.virgin.net do binary rentention for 3days only…. and quite frankly they are idots.
Bloody http://www.virgin.com
IN FACT AS SOON AS VIRGIN APPLY IT’S 3 STRIKE POLICY IT INCREASED THE SPEED OF ITS USENET SERVERS SO BRANSON OBVIOUSLY KNOWS HOW TO AIM THE MARKET AT TECH SAVVIES
Brein is a ‘foundation’, they aren’t really like the RIAA/MPAA who are hired/created by the movie/music companies, anybody that puts down the registration fee of like 50 euros can register to become a foundation.
What brein then does is find artists or budding artist and get them to sign, at that point they claim complete control of that artists work, some artists that wanted to allow an aid event to play their songs for free were told by brein they could not because they controlled their songs now.
Of the money they rake in they ‘of course’ use a certain percentage for ‘running cost and salaries’ but being very secretive they won’t tell how much the bosses get, might be 70%, what’s left is divided among those that signed with them, ONLY those that signed, meanwhile they pretend to be a ‘national’ representative, and THE anti piracy group, but in reality it’s a small criminal gang of leeches without any decency who tricked some artist in the netherlands and their purpose is not to ‘fight piracy’ but to get rich easy.
This is all documented and you can find news organizations who investigated it and footage of them stammering while they were asked how much goes to the artist and who the hell they think they are.
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