An anti-piracy group has revealed that when it comes to shutting down torrent sites, it is the undisputed king of the Internet. BREIN, which works on behalf of the Hollywood movie studios, says that not only has it shut down several Usenet indexers and streaming sites already in 2010, but hundreds of torrent sites too. There is torrent site carnage going on in The Netherlands and we’ve failed to report on any of it.
The criminal proceedings against P2P index site ShareConnector is turning into an embarrassing fiasco for the Dutch Department of Justice. A court has decided to reopen the case and summons the public prosecutor as it doubts the legitimacy of the criminal prosecution and the fact that it acted on evidence brought in by local anti-piracy outfit BREIN.
A movie studio has won a lawsuit against Dutch Usenet community FTD. In a surprising decision, a court reasoned that by allowing the publication of the location of pirate movie stored on Usenet, FTD was effectively publishing the movie as if they had actually hosted it on their own servers.
In recent months there have been several attempts by anti-piracy groups to force file-sharing sites to filter links from their systems. But now in a bold move by Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN, there are demands that a Usenet provider should proactively filter infringing content from the worldwide newsgroup system.
Last year The Pirate Bay lost its case in The Netherlands with a court ruling that the site must cease its activities in the country. Despite this decision the site is still accessible in The Netherlands, but anti-piracy group BREIN isn’t sitting still. According to information received by TorrentFreak, they are now taking action to force an ISP to start blocking the site.
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.
Having long battled on behalf of the movie industry, Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN is spreading its wings into a new market area. With an eye on the likelihood that piracy will increase in the sector, BREN has entered into an trial agreement with publishers to stem the growth of eBook piracy.
Even more news...
After years of negotiating and planning the “six strikes” copyright alert system finally saw the light...
Those who enter Kim Dotcom into Google’s search box will get millions of results. Still, Google...
In an interview with Computer and Video Games, Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto says that his company...
As all readers should know by now, BitTorrent activity is public and can be easily logged...
The Pirate Bay is not responding at the moment and most proxies appear to be down...
Below are TorrentFreak's most discussed articles of the past month. Join the discussion if you like.
Left Quote“The Pirate Bay has been one of the most important movements in Sweden for freedom of speech, working against corruption and censorship.
Peter Sunde Left Quote
A selection of some TorrentFreak's classics dug up from our archives.
More than a year ago TorrentFreak took a look at a selection of the web’s VPN...
Continuing a long-standing New Year's tradition, today we present an up-to-date list of the world's most-visited...
Last month it became apparent that not all VPN providers live up to their marketing after...
Privacy is important on the Internet, and BitTorrent users are certainly not excluded. Already, hundreds of...
With the entertainment industries lobbying for increased powers to spy on BitTorrent users, many downloaders are...
BitTorrent can be fun, as long as you get decent speeds. Not satisfied with your current...