Leaseweb Forced To Shut Down More BitTorrent Sites
Written by Ernesto on November 16, 2007The Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has forced LeaseWeb to take down several BitTorrent sites. Although the ISP is determined to fight for its customers in court, for now, it has no other option than to shut down BitTorrent sites when they’re ordered to.
BREIN uses the decision from a case from earlier this year to put pressure on LeaseWeb. In this case, the Amsterdam court ruled that Leaseweb had to take the BitTorrent tracker everlasting.nu offline and hand over the name and address of the owner. Additionally, Leaseweb was ordered to take down everlasting.nu, in case the site returns in the near future.
It looks like LeaseWeb, once the safe haven of many BitTorrent sites, is now seriously under threat. BREIN already used the decision in the everlasting.nu case to take Demonoid down and are now planning to do the same with other BitTorrent sites hosted at LeaseWeb. TorrentFreak got its hands on an email from LeaseWeb, in which they urge one of their customers to take their website offline.
LeaseWeb writes in the email: “In a recent case at the Amsterdam District Court, LeaseWeb was ordered to take down such sites. Although LeaseWeb has filed an appeal and will keep fighting for its client’s rights up to the highest court, LeaseWeb regrettable has no choice but to obey the court order and take down sites that list (bittorrent/edonkey) files.”
This is an alarming statement since there are lots of BitTorrent sites hosted at LeaseWeb. For now only SumoTorrent has confirmed that the .torrent files and the tracker will move to an ISP in Canada, but according to the email from LeaseWeb it is likely that more sites will follow.
Interestingly, the BitTorrent sites are allowed to keep their servers at LeaseWeb as long as they move the .torrent files and the trackers to another host. This means that the frontend of some sites might stay at LeaseWeb and that a link to a file that links to copyrighted content is fine.
To give an indication of the magnitude of the issue, here’s a selection of some of the bigger BitTorrent sites hosted at LeaseWeb and there are many more.
btjunkie.org, seedpeer.com, torrentleech.org, mybittorrent.com, btmon.com, sumotorrent.com, what.cd, waffles.fm, hdbits.org, bitenova.nl, torrentportal.com, monova.org and dozens of smaller BitTorrent sites.
Not all these websites received an email from LeaseWeb (yet). It seems that BREIN plans to focus on the sites that run a BitTorrent tracker, similar to Demonoid and Everlasting.nu, first.
It’s a tough spot for LeaseWeb to be in as a significant part of their income comes from these BitTorrent sites. However, they have to obey the court order, and are pretty serious about it as they write: “We hereby kindly request you to take down the website mentioned below within 24hours. Failure to do so will result in a direct ending of the contract and services provided by LeaseWeb.”
We asked LeaseWeb for a comment and they forwarded a copy of their legal statement regarding sites listing BitTorrent files in which they explain that there is no other option than to take down BitTorrent sites if they are asked to. However, they also state: “LeaseWeb has filed an appeal and will keep fighting for its client’s privacy and right of freedom of expression up to the highest court.”
Stay tuned for updates!
Previously: Police Charge Man in Movie Camming Crackdown
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111 Responses
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People: Check this out from Keznews:
quote “the u.s. house of representatives has taken a step toward approving a hollywood-backed spending bill requiring universities to consider offering “alternatives” and “technology-based deterrents” to illegal peer-to-peer file sharing.” Unquote
how long will the people let corporate america run amok? this is plain wrong!
hollywood is truly evil. the mpaa & riaa are evil corporate entitys interested in continuing their cash flow only. people mean nothing to them, and human rights even less. the united states senate is a spineless, bought of charade of pretenders wearing halloween masks preying on their constiguents they claim to represent. watch and see they will try and make it a ‘criminal offense’ to share a file. hollywood has already betrayed public trust by not releasing material like mickey mouse into the public domain, under the ‘bono act’ to enrich our culture, to inspire new artists. corporate title holders under the constituition of the us are not supposed to keep profiting into the 4th generation of relatives from works. the public domain is a well for all.
The more pressure the bittorrent is facing, the closer it gets to grave. Maybe the time has finally come for BT to die, and handover the bandwidth to more secure and anonymous software, like MUTE.
Technology will never stop, and maybe, just maybe, it’s good for pirates to hear the death knell for Bram Cohen’s child.
got to atleast give them credit for try’n to fight
ScT and Scc too
This is INSANE! Why can’t the American people realize how much concern/pressure it is to keep the mumbo jumbo “singers” for their paychecks and put a freaking foot down!
BIG BUSINESS SUCKS DICK
FUCK YOU BUSH.
For you people that think Ernesto should take that list down:
You guys are fucking retarded.
If you whois those sites you can see they’re on leaseweb. You can whois any site to see if it’s on leaseweb. MAYBE THE RIAA DOESN’T KNOW OF THAT SUPER PRIVATE SECRET.
OMG WTF HAX!!
yes, but you can’t google torrent sites hosted on leaseweb (well you couldn’t, you can now ;) )
Thank you bush. They already know where every single torrent site in the world is hosted. Listing them here won’t hurt a fly.
FUCK
Stupid brein and Tim Kuik bloody retarded motherfucker.
Why aren’t brein sued FFS ?
We should do something, anybody got an idea how we can effectively keep brein off the illegal stuff, they fucking threatened shareconnectors admin, how long can we keep tolerating this company from hell?
That email is so fake. No reputable company puts out an official email with poor grammar of that caliber. Unless of course, the company is 50megs…
Brein didn’t take Demonoid down, Deimos did, to avoid having to go to court.
If that chickenshit hadn’t ran LeaseWeb probably wouldn’t be in this mess right now.
And now all the other cowards are going to bail as well, that’s going to set a nice prescendent of implied guilt.
None of these greedy assholes should have been running trackers in the first place, fuck ‘em.
[quote comment="215224"]Interesting. I’m not sure that I understand why BitTorrent trackers get away legally with what they do (unless they are big public ones that are used for lots of lawful content, like The Pirate Bay). Nobody uploads or downloads copyrighted content from the site itself, but the tracker coordinates such copying. That makes it exactly the same as what the original Napster did, as far as I can tell, so I would think they would be on the same legal grounds as Napster. In the U.S. at least, that was “contributory copyright infringement.”
[/quote]
This is not america, shalalalala…
[quote comment="215281"]Is it necessary to post the names of sites yet not affected by this action
within this story ?[/quote]I was wondering the exact same thing. Sorry Ernesto, but this is a very strange, almost suspicious move.
I can’t wait for randpeer to finish the code for the new piratebay peer-sharing protocol, so these actions have nothing to stand on, and centralisation is entirely over. TPB are the only ones big enough to pull off a succesful start of a new and improved mass sharing system!
Maybe something Deimos’ crew, everlasting and TPB could work together on. Let’s all join forces in this;
Make Tim Uilskuiken, Brein, MPAA, RIAA, CRIA, IFPI bite the dust and hope that the best new DHT-like anonymous sharing medium kicks off a.s.a.p. !
[quote comment="215491"]Brein didn’t take Demonoid down, Deimos did, to avoid having to go to court.
If that chickenshit hadn’t ran LeaseWeb probably wouldn’t be in this mess right now.[/quote]Nonsense. You don’t know what you’re writing about. This has nothing to do with demonoid.
Oh and YOU are the chicken shit here. Obviously jealous too. Go run your own bittorrent tracker, then we’ll listen.
[quote comment="215410"]For you people that think Ernesto should take that list down:
You guys are fucking retarded.
If you whois those sites you can see they’re on leaseweb. You can whois any site to see if it’s on leaseweb.
MAYBE THE RIAA DOESN’T KNOW OF THAT SUPER PRIVATE SECRET.
OMG WTF HAX!![/quote]You might be surprised to find how stupid they actually are (read the mediadefender story!). So yeah, NOT mentioning websites may very well mean a life-saver for many sites!
Also, you’re the retard here: This is a reverse search made easy for those who need a starting point. The search you’re claiming is so easy is hard; leaseweb is hosting millions of websites, internationally, even.
Actually, there is a way to see what sites are hosted on Leaseweb. Netcraft has a database listing what sites are hosted at each individual IP, and all sites hosted on all IPs owned by an organisation
[quote comment="215282"]Mininova will be sued by Brein[/quote]BREIN can not sue anybody. They aren’t the law, they are just a (quite small) ‘Stichting’. So this is all lies, and all scaretactics by YOU, them, and ny news-media that joins this bandwagon.
I also think leaseweb are not doing their job properly: Hire a decent lawyer you fools. They have NOTHING to stand on. Dutch law permits ALL of what these sites are doing. Get the facts.
[quote comment="215558"]Actually, there is a way to see what sites are hosted on Leaseweb. Netcraft has a database listing what sites are hosted at each individual IP, and all sites hosted on all IPs owned by an organisation[/quote]
DUH, but you still need to DO the actual reverse search on millions of hosted sites and IP-addresses they resolve to. Trust me, that is A LOT harder. Ernesto is someone I don’t trust here. He goes along with the scare-mongering. Divide and conquer is their strategy.
leaseweb is ordered to take those sites down because they know which sites are on the servers, so there is no harm in that list
I suspect Ernesto likes “Shock!” “Horror!” headlines. Probably in need of an editor to act as a filter. If bt dies, what is this site for?
[quote comment="215353"]People: Check this out from Keznews:
quote “the u.s. house of representatives has taken a step toward approving a hollywood-backed spending bill requiring universities to consider offering “alternatives” and “technology-based deterrents” to illegal peer-to-peer file sharing.” Unquote
how long will the people let corporate america run amok? this is plain wrong!
hollywood is truly evil. the mpaa & riaa are evil corporate entitys interested in continuing their cash flow only. people mean nothing to them, and human rights even less. the united states senate is a spineless, bought of charade of pretenders wearing halloween masks preying on their constiguents they claim to represent. watch and see they will try and make it a ‘criminal offense’ to share a file. hollywood has already betrayed public trust by not releasing material like mickey mouse into the public domain, under the ‘bono act’ to enrich our culture, to inspire new artists. corporate title holders under the constituition of the us are not supposed to keep profiting into the 4th generation of relatives from works. the public domain is a well for all.[/quote]
[quote comment="215374"]This is INSANE! Why can’t the American people realize how much concern/pressure it is to keep the mumbo jumbo “singers” for their paychecks and put a freaking foot down!
BIG BUSINESS SUCKS DICK
FUCK YOU BUSH.[/quote]
lol@u guys. maybe you should read the article. this has absolutely nothing to do with the US, corporate America, or President Bush.
Hey, I’m all for illegal filesharing and whatnot, but for #26 saying it’s like a violation of human rights? WTF? You do realize what we are doing is against the law, right? You, me, no one has some god-given right to just freely leech and download music you did not pay for. Why is there such a sense of entitlement here?
Maybe a stupid question:
Is leaseweb ordered to take down all torrent sites or only sites which are specified (i.e. named) by either brein fetching a court order (or by the court itself)?
[quote comment="215641"]
Hey, I’m all for illegal filesharing and whatnot, but for #26 saying it’s like a violation of human rights? WTF? You do realize what we are doing is against the law, right? You, me, no one has some god-given right to just freely leech and download music you did not pay for. Why is there such a sense of entitlement here?[/quote]
steal (stl)
v. stole (stl), sto·len (stln), steal·ing, steals
v.tr.
1. To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
2. To get or effect surreptitiously or artfully: steal a kiss; stole the ball from an opponent.
3. To move, carry, or place surreptitiously.
4. To draw attention unexpectedly in (an entertainment), especially by being the outstanding performer: The magician’s assistant stole the show with her comic antics.
5. Baseball To advance safely to (another base) during the delivery of a pitch, without the aid of a base hit, walk, passed ball, or wild pitch.
Downloading isn’t stealing, unless you work for the RIAA. We don’t take away property, they still have it. We just copy.
I doubt in the times of Mozart & Co. anyone has been sued for playing their work on an own instrument.
Absurdity just started when the greedy RIAA came into play. They are the real thiefs, stealing money from the Artists AND the customers.
By now they’re at the same time terrorists, for terrorizing children, grandma’s, students, solo parent mothers and anyone else they can get a cent leeched of. Believe me they’d even terrorize your cat (dog?), if could pay them money.
Just my two centnotes :f
Can someone translate this?
http://212.136.47.12/nieuws/bericht.asp?nieuwsberichtid=73
Perhaps we should all email leaseweb to refuse anything brein demands and to tell them that with a decent lawyer, brein can’t do anything.
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