Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN says that it wants to form partnerships with payment processors such as PayPal in order to strangle the finances of file-sharing sites.
“We are in talks with the Dutch payment providers and are working towards partnerships,” BREIN chief Tim Kuik told Tweakers.net.
“These providers offer payment services to Web sites and since those sites are unlawful, then you should not deliver those services.”
Controversially, Kuik also says he is hoping that services such as PayPal, who take steps to identify their customers, can help where traditional methods of discovering the names of file-sharing site operators have failed.
“We are often faced with services that operate anonymously and have given their hosting provider false information,” Kuik said.
“We suspect that the payment providers have a good track, because the money they send has to go somewhere.”
While BREIN is mainly interested in shutting down sites offering unauthorized movies, according to a July announcement by IFPI, PayPal has already agreed to cut off funds destined for sites offering unauthorized music.