BREIN had successfully convinced the FIOD-ECD – Fiscal Investigation Unit of the Dutch Police – to shut down both sites and take the servers into custody for a thorough inspection, hoping to find traces of criminal activities.

When the case finally went to court, the result for BREIN and the FIOD-ECD was a disaster. The admin of ShareConnector was found completely innocent and just a couple of small fines of approximately $350 were handed out to the admins of Releases4U for uploading copyright material.

The court ruled that FIOD-ECD failed to provide any evidence to prove ShareConnector was involved in copyright infringement nor enough to prove that either organization was criminal in nature. In addition, the judge ruled that the initial arrests were unlawful as the evidence provided by BREIN was insufficient.

Despite this setback the Department of Justice announced back in 2007 that it would appeal the verdict, but in the years that followed nothing happened, until today. More than two years after the ShareConnector admin was released from all charges, the Department of Justice filed the appeal.

One can only wonder why it took this long. The case itself and the evidence presented during the trial hasn’t changed. In fact, the only thing that’s changed is the media attention on file-sharing cases and the increased efforts of organizations such as BREIN to take on sites that host links to copyright infringing works.

The ShareConnector admin, who briefly put his site back online in 2007 before BREIN managed to close it through a civil dispute, told TorrentFreak that he was surprised to find out that the case will be appealed after all.

“It’s understandable that the DoJ tries everything in their power to cover up their illegal, unprofessional and unfair doings by spreading misinforming propaganda in the mainstream news. They can’t deal with such issues because they don’t know what the Internet is about, nor do they seem to care,” the admin told TorrentFreak.

“They failed before and they will fail again. It’s about time they realize that you can’t control the future, if you don’t understand the past,” he added.

Besides the appeal of the criminal trial, ShareConnector will also be facing BREIN again as the site’s admin decided to appeal the earlier decision that forced him to close the site. “This year is really packed with lawsuits for me with hopefully some conclusive results about the legality of eD2k indexing sites in the Netherlands,” he writes.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Initially, ShareConnector’s host had refused to shut down the site stating correctly that offering links is not a crime. However December 2004 saw ShareConnector and another site, Releases4U, raided by the FIOD-ECD, resulting in the seizure of equipment and the arrest of 8 people. At the time, BREIN director Tim Kuik explained they were done waiting: “Our patience was up, after which we went to the authorities” he said.

According to P2PNet, Kuik, going for the jugular, asserted that the ShareConnector admin, Adi, should get up to 4 years in jail as he hid behind ‘false reasoning that illegal files are actually hosted on different servers and that the actual exchange doesn’t take place on their own servers’, which is, of course, a completely and utterly false assertion on Kuik’s part.

Eventually, after taking nearly 2 years to come to court, the result for BREIN and the FIOD-ECD was a disaster. The admin of ShareConnector was found completely innocent and just a couple of small fines of approximately $350 were handed out to the admins of Releases4U for uploading copyright material. The FIOD-ECD failed to provide any evidence to prove ShareConnector was involved in copyright infringement nor enough to prove that either organization was criminal in nature.

December 19th 2006 saw the triumphant return of ShareConnector, around 2 years after it was shuttered by the police but the return was not to be permanent. Not content with accepting that a criminal trial had taken place at which Adi and ShareConnector were found to be completely legal, BREIN resorted to the tactics it knows best and has had most success with – common bullying.

On Monday November 5th 2007, representatives from BREIN knocked on Adi’s door and threatened him face to face with potentially financially punishing civil action. On November 12th 2007, ShareConnector shut down for good.

The sad message on the site’s homepage now reads:

Last Monday the guys from BREIN visited me at home to convince me to close ShareConnector or else they will start a civil proceeding with a claim. Of course, this does not mean I agree with their point of view, it’s just that I can’t afford taking any risks.

As of today, November 12, 2007 I decided to close down. If there is anything new to report, you will be informed.

Thank you for all your support and understanding.

Next on the FIOD-ECD hitlist are OiNK’s seized servers. They’re likely to find that the situation is exactly the same as it was with ShareConnector, i.e no copyright materials were stored on it, so it’s not easy to see where they will succeed against OiNK where they previously failed. There is no offense of ‘facilitation’ under UK copyright law.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.