Why Usenet Community FTD Went After BREIN
Written by enigmax on May 20, 2009It is very common indeed for anti-piracy groups to go after sites linked to file-sharing. However, in The Netherlands the tables have recently been turned as the FTD Usenet community is taking legal action against anti-piracy group BREIN. TorrentFreak spoke with FTD’s lawyer to discover exactly why this worm has turned.
Founded in 2001, FTD is The Netherlands largest Usenet community with around 450,000 members. FTD and its associated software allows its members to report the location of material they find on Usenet, which could include the usual movies, music and TV shows. This caused it to be a target for notorious anti-piracy outfit BREIN.
Not wanting to be bullied for what it considers to be a completely legal operation, FTD took the unusual step of taking BREIN to court, after Tim Kuik, the head of the outfit, said that FTD and its operators were committing a crime. FTD’s owners and lawyers vigorously deny this claim, the details of which can be found in our earlier report.
So what led up to this legal showdown? TorrentFreak spoke with FTD’s specialist IT lawyer, Arnoud Engelfriet, of Ictrecht law firm.
“In January of this year, BREIN announced they were ‘going after Usenet’ and
specifically singled out FTD as their first target,” Arnoud told TorrentFreak.
Naturally this position was of concern to FTD, but instead of burying their heads in the sand they actually contacted BREIN with a view to discovering where their differences lay and sorting them out amicably.
“Shortly after that, FTD engaged in negotiations with BREIN to find out what their objections were and how we could overcome them,” Arnoud told us. The discussions led FTD to pro-actively modify how they operate to ensure that there could be no doubt as to their legality.
“We even voluntarily made some changes to the FTD platform to ensure there could be no doubt we were in the clear,” Arnoud explained. But their attempts to engage and negotiate with BREIN came to nothing.
“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.”
Indeed, ignoring the outstretched hand and making their intentions against FTD public, BREIN chief Tim Kuik spoke with Dutch publication Volkskrant and the resulting article titled “You do not pay for it, it’s unlawful” labeled FTD’s operations criminal. “Although they [FTD] are not carrying illegal content on their servers, what FTD does is simply criminal,” said Kuik.
Usually at this point a site being bullied by BREIN would either dig in its heels and wait for the lawsuit and injunction against them, or capitulate in fear of being destroyed.
“We could have waited for preliminary injunction proceedings, which is BREIN’s weapon of choice,” Arnoud told us. But that would have taken too much time, and since preliminary injunctions leave little room for a thorough investigation of all relevant facts, the risk was that FTD could be forced to close down for all the wrong reasons.
So FTD did something quite unusual in these cases – it went on the offensive against BREIN instead.
“At that stage, we felt that doing nothing would leave the sword of Damocles over our heads,” Arnoud told TorrentFreak. “BREIN is very fond of making continuous ominous statements in the press, and that could create a FUD environment for FTD. Therefore we decided to go to court and ask for an official declaration that downloading is legal, that it’s also legal to inform people about materials to download and to offer a platform to let people inform each other,” he added.
FTD also wants a public statement from BREIN correcting its assertion that its operations are criminal, and a declaration from the court that FTD’s operations are fully legal.
“We fully expect to win our case. BREIN is big on statements but often short on facts and legal arguments to back them up,” Arnoud told TorrentFreak.
“We have the law and the facts on our side.”
Previously: TorrentFreak TV Episode 11
Next: ‘Spanish Napster’ Sued For Unfair Competition
55 Responses
bit off more then they could chew..
“We have the law and the facts on our side.”
And the facts are that you need to pay a premium of around 5 euros basic to get access. So lets do the sums, 450,000 peeps at how much a head = how much money. And yes I have heard all the, “we need money to run the servers”. So its not can you donate a little to cover the server costs, no no no, its pay up or go somewhere else. Oplichters ontmaskeerd? Zeker
??????? ????????! ???? ????? ??????…
Not a Usenet fan myself, but kudos to FTD for taking the fight to BREIN.
The anti-piracy outfits have to be made to understand that they don’t make the laws.
Good luck to FTD!
I sure hope they can pull it off. The legal system always seems biased against filesharers, even though the majority of the population does not support the legal system in this. Quite sad really when you think of it.
Fucking Ay.
About time these sites stood there ground – if not because the chances of winning are better – but because it’s a great way to advertise! :D
If they loose they loose, if they wait it out they would still loose – so might as well get those ad clicks in whilst you can! :D
I’ll eat my words if they win the case though – Usenet has a lot more money that a non-profit tracker.
This should be interesting…
Well, fair play to FTD, and i really hope they do win! It will be a good day for everyone if it happens, though im not optimistic!
Bah it was a mistake to even change anything .. don’t even show you may be being ‘dubiosly legal’
[I guess that goes with mininova too .. not sure why they cooperated before any trial]
basically the same accusations as against TPB, so dont hold your breath on the verdict! you’ve all seen the tactics that are used by the anti-piracy groups, eg bribery, bullying etc. nothing they do is illegal (according to them) but when the ‘other side’ uses similar ploys, they are completely condemed! ie, it’s ok to be illegal when it suits!!
Fuk Usenet. They are the parasedic leeches of filesharing. At least torrent sites & FTP don’t charge you up front for making money off of FREE FILES. The only thing they do is index them like any other FTP site or Torrent site.
Far as i’m concerned Usenet can be the first one to burn and no ones going to care when its the P2L (pay to leech) foundation thats going to be going up in flames.
no2 EAT A DICK UP BIATCH!
@1 That’s what she said.
If I’m not mistaken, its the client that requires the subscription, not usenet itself – i’m probably wrong about that.
Can anyone clarify that? If its true, it could be used as a bludgeon against FTD – a ’subscription’ service coupled with possible piracy is roughly equivalent to a death sentence in any court room – its paying for illegal material, which no matter how minor could snowball and fuck them up.
@#2 ,you don’t have to pay for FTD,it’s free!! You can drop a dime on a newserver but you don’t have to.
Mine came free with my ISP,I’ll bet you got one too.
Back on topic:I still don’t like the removal of the NZB-button,it looks like FTD has been doing something illegal for all those years,I hope for them it doesn’t backfire on them.
10 Kudos for bitch-slappin’ Tim Kuik,Heck, let’s make it 20.
Cheers,
-the Queef-
Im glad somebody’s finally going against them!
I have never used UseNet or FTD so I can’t comment on their activities. Still, it’s refreshing to see something like this. We’ll see what happens.
FTD stands for Fuck The Dutch, for the people who were wondering.
http://torrentino.net
Sorry folks I have made a grave error. Was searching for a doc on engine building and came across a site that needed you to pay, FDA fast download archive. I got a bit confused with the name after a few refreshments(shall we say) and shot my mouth off before reading the site again under clear eyes. Sorry again for my mistake.
I will go and stand in the corner, with the hat on
@9 We still need usenet communities to deliver the rare and new content
Never used Usenet… But went and read about it at Wiki… Seems to be a lot better system then torrents in sense of anonymity. But I wait for torrent like technology(high swarm speeds) with usenet like servers built in in to client + alike anonymity features so that you do not know what traffic goes trough you and what information is stored in HDD segment you shared for the network. Pretty shore such algorithms/protocols are possible and wonder when they will come :)
As for FTD… They shore made an interesting move by reducing time industry representatives have to investigate and probably apply some pressure to authorities.
They obviously only got FTD to change their stuff so they could see that they would be an easy target, and released news on their site about them after things were changed.
It’s good that FTD went on the offensive here, but saying you have the law on your side, when that doesn’t actually mean anything really?
The courts are way too corrupt, as we’ve all seen.
I wish people would stop slating usenet… I pay for the bandwidth I use, not the content – this ensures that when I download I get to max out my connection – on EVERY file, EVERY time! On top of that I have a fully encrypted connection, and guaranteed anonimity – what I download and my IP address are not recorded! I pay for the service – not the files!
Pfft. BREIN will win. We all know they will have corrupt judges etc. The only way to fight these asshats is politically by voting Pirate Party.
Laws may change some day. Realize that.
Conspiracy theory:
What if all of this is just a step stone to create precedents so the industry can have leverage to go after bigger fish like youtube and the like.
@22-anon_conspiracy:
like they’re not already bending over..
@18-o:
yes it does yes it does yes it does yes it does (can’t hear ya) ;)
Fingers crossed, Brein should’ve been bitchslapped about 5 years ago.
Yes Yes Ya’LL
“like they’re not already bending over..”
Scene from Pulp Fiction just flashed in front of my eyes LoL
@12 – I agree. Tim Kuik needs to be bitch-slapped. And not in a virtual way. ;)
“We have the law and the facts on our side.”
- So did The Pirate Bay.
Other Usenet indexing sites do charge for access, such as Newzbin.
But there are others that are entirely free and also outright Usenet search engines (like binsearch.info) that don’t charge.
Newzbin, incidentally, is involved in a legal fight with another of the anti-piracy companies, MPA (Motion Picture Association). They’ve been forced to pull some reports from the site (but which can still be accessed if the user switches to a different format.)
The anti-piracy companies think that they can do what they want and always get their way; it’s about time someone from the pro-p2p side
fought back. Though Usenet is not p2p, the MAFIAA still attacks it just as much as they do with torrent sites.
Re: #13, lonewolf;
“If I’m not mistaken, its the client that requires the subscription, not usenet itself – i’m probably wrong about that.”
There are *MANY* Usenet client programs. Some are optimized for reading text groups while some are designed to make binary downloading as easy as possible. Some of them are free and some of them are shareware. Obviously you need to pay for the shareware ones, but it’s not exactly a subscription. Some NZB sites (think of them like torrent sites) do charge a subscription fee, but many are free and being able to download from Usenet doesn’t depend on using an NZB site, free or pay. They just make it more convenient.
As far as Usenet itself goes, whether you need to pay a fee depends on your ISP. Once upon a time, nearly every ISP offered Usenet access. This varied from “very good” to “what a joke”. Running a good news server requires *TONS* of storage space, on the order of hundreds of terabytes, not to mention time and money. Many ISPs outsourced to professional Usenet providers, but many have now decided that it’s not worth the cost. If your ISP doesn’t provide Usenet access or you want better service (fewer missing parts, longer retention), then yes, you need to pay for an account with a premium Usenet provider.
You can subscribe to any Usenet provider you want, use any client you want and search for NZB files (or not) on any NZB site you want.
Re: #16, Rogue
“I have never used UseNet or FTD so I can’t comment on their activities. Still, it’s refreshing to see something like this. We’ll see what happens.”
As I understand it, what FTD did was similar to verifying torrents and weeding out the fakes or bad copies to make it easier to find what you wanted. They didn’t host the content themselves, nor did they provide actual Usenet access. They simply pointed out which posts were the good ones.
Re: #19, wonderwhy-er;
“Never used Usenet… But went and read about it at Wiki… Seems to be a lot better system then torrents in sense of anonymity. But I wait for torrent like technology(high swarm speeds) with usenet like servers built in in to client + alike anonymity features so that you do not know what traffic goes trough you and what information is stored in HDD segment you shared for the network. Pretty shore such algorithms/protocols are possible and wonder when they will come :)”
You didn’t read closely enough. :)
Usenet isn’t an automatic two-way medium like BitTorrent. You either upload or you download, you don’t do both, unless you choose to. You can download all day long and you’ll never upload a single byte of information to the server unless you specifically choose to do so. Moreover, you CAN’T just choose to share what you’re downloading. Uploading/posting to Usenet requires dedicated posting software. You can’t just check a box that says “Share what I download”. In fact, doing so would be pointless. There’s already a copy of the files on the server and anyone with Usenet access is free to download them, the same as you.
As for downloading being anonymous, most Usenet providers specifically state that they don’t keep logs of WHAT you download, only how much, for billing purposes. Uploaders are at risk, but from what I’ve seen, the flow of movies, TV shows and music on Usenet doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
One person did try to create a P2P-like system for distributing Usenet posts, but it didn’t do that well. Why rely on others to keep what you’re looking for online when you can just connect to the server and download it as fast as your connection will allow?
I’ve always found it amusing, how the pirates thumb their noses at the law, then call on it later when it can be used to vindicate themselves in the eyes of society’s moral scrutiny.
by: neostyles
I’ve always found it amusing, how the pirates thumb their noses at the law
that would be hundreds of millions of pirates, and we grow everyday!!
Well if the problem is the law look no further them spain and canada as good examples.
Downloading for personal reasons is perfectly legal on those jurisdictions.
@34 yet the media industries see “piracy” as a major problem in these countries – and still accuse downloaders of breaking the law!
@34 & 35
Your both wrong. I live there. The government has openly stated (TF actually covered it as well) That commercial downloading for personal use is OK, but uploading anything is against the law. BUT they dont have the time or resources to bother going after people for something so stupid and petty.
They have real crime to solve. Not breaking down doors looking for some 14 yr old girl downloading songs on her moms laptop.
ie: Common sense prevails in Canada. Thus far.
True, in Canada the RCMP have decided to leave the file sharers alone and not turn the country into criminals. I know that because I live In Canada too.
Well and this is why I don’t buy music anymore, I go to places where there is more freedom like Jamendo.
I used to go shopping for music and videos but those guys started to annoy me with this kind of crapoula.
Close all avenues so the people are forced to buy first and decide latter if it will keep it or not LoL
I will never ever give them another penny if can get away with it.
My ISP blocks torrentfreak and I’m forced to use a proxy to read stuff here.
@39 Try using OpenDNS
@Rabbit80:
OpenDNS I tried already.Doesn’t work either.
And when I try a traceroute it goes out but never returns LoL
The ping command times out too.
If you are in Japan never use Plala.
The reason I’m saying is the ISP is because the traceroute stops when the packets are in route back and stop the moment they reach the IP of the ISP gateway.
I did a traceroute right now and it stops always when it gets here:
208.173.176.222
So in 5 times and in all I ended up in the same IP I will try tomorrow and see if it changes but I doubt.
And I tested with the IP from the torrentfreak that I found on whois to see if I could access it without DNS and no love.
http://208.100.56.138/
Only way to fight these self made legal ponzi scheme organisations is to piggy-sue their socks off.
@ #2:
“And the facts are that you need to pay a premium of around 5 euros basic to get access.”
You clearly don’t even know what it is. It’s free to sign up, as a forum. You can donate to remove the ads but it’s not needed at all. Idiot ontmaskeerd? Zeker.
BREIN is full of BULLSHIT.
@37 : You are very wrong. It seems that you aren’t aware of the sheer scale of piracy. Piracy is nothing short of an epidemic. It’s not just a few songs. FTD taps into usenet, which is quickly gaining popularity. If you think it’s “just a few songs, you are misleading yourself.” It’s movies, games, apps, etc.
Canada is one of our closest neighbors, and I doubt that they openly condone violating American copyrights.
Canada has copyright laws too
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_copyright_law#Subsistence_of_copyright
The situation with that only applies to music. Movies, games, etc. are still illegal. You took that out of context
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_sharing_in_Canada
@34 : Piracy may be costing the industry a ton of money, but it’s definitely not “hundreds of millions of people.”
In 2007 the RIAA sued Usenet.com.
It’s not a question of if but when they are going for others.
And don’t expect the U.S. government to change its ways if nothing Obama loves the RIAA as he appointed 5 lawyers of the RIAA and didn’t let anybody see the ACTA thingy because it’s a matter of national security.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/03/obama-declares/
Don’t see the negative impact of filesharing on the industry.
There is a lot of studies saying exactly the contrary that or don’t have an impact at all relevant or it spawn new commerce and more revenues for the economy.
Besides that the “fair use” crowd bring more revenue than the MAFIAA could ever put on the table (45 trillion dollars)
“REVENUE
In 2006, fair use industries generated revenue of $4.5 trillion, a 31
percent increase over 2002 revenue of $3.5 trillion. In percentage
terms, the most significant growth occurred in electronic shopping,
audio and video equipment manufacturing, Internet publishing and
broadcasting, Internet service providers and web search portals, and
other information services.”
The CCIA study:
http://www.ccianet.org/artmanager/uploads/1/FairUseStudy-Sep12.pdf
Just let the entertainment industry role over and die.
@ neostyles
i read between 20 and 60 million in the US alone ,,, google it
http://www.overclockers.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4388:riaaspoof&catid=53:editorials&Itemid=4259
here u go neostyles wiki master
QUOTE: In 2004 there were an estimated 70 million people participating in online file sharing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethics_of_file_sharing
stick that under ur hat ;)
SO… If anything that proves how serious the issue is and what kind of threat it poses to the industry’s financial interests.
“Just let the entertainment industry role over and die.”
Wow, this is exactly why piracy needs to be stopped. Pirates only care about themselves. They think the world revolves around them and that the whole world is there just to play along with their self satisfied, lazy ego.
@49: Open your eyes
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1027-996205.html
@52, blow it out yer ass.
Just in case anyone is wondering how corrupt the dutch legal system really is:
http://www.klokkenluideronline.nl/artikel/878/call-to-the-international-media-expose-this.html
In short, the highest boss in the justice department is a known child-rapist, and is getting blackmailed with that fact.
Well the public clearly believes FTD is gonna win this case. So far 93%. See this survey: http://twtpoll.com/jxv8ub
Responses are closed
All remaining responses will continue to be archived. Use the TorrentFreak forums if you want to discuss something.