The MPAA and their colleagues in The Netherlands appear to have shut down more than two dozen BitTorrent, Usenet and other file-sharing sites today. Accused of linking to movies, music, TV shows and games, at least one domain appears to be redirecting to the website of Dutch anti-piracy outfit, BREIN.

In an operation carried out by the MPAA and Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN, 29 BitTorrent and Usenet indexing sites are believed to have been closed down.

The names of the sites, which appear to have been offering links to movies, music, TV shows, games and books, are currently unavailable but at least one appears to be identified as HD-UNiT3D.

As can be seen from its http://hd-united.com/ URL, it diverts straight to BREIN’s homepage.

Despite being hosted in the US the anti-piracy outfit cited Dutch law as the reason for the closures. “They are directed at the Dutch public” and “unlawful under Dutch law,” Kuik told TorrentFreak.

“This year we have made over 600 of these sites inaccessible. Some seek refuge in a foreign hosting provider. These 29 apparently thought that in America they could go undisturbed. That is incorrect,” Kuik said.

“Through cooperation with our foreign colleagues we can make sites in other countries inaccessible,” he added.

BREIN says it will also seek out the personal details of the those who operate the sites in order to hold them personally liable.

As mentioned in our earlier articles, BREIN has indeed closed down many torrent and Usenet related sites. However, while some of them have been reasonably sized, most of them are particularly small and easy to close by pressuring their hosts.

The fact that none of the owners or users of the sites have alerted us about these alleged closures suggests that no sizable sites were included.

The MPAA are yet to make a statement on the action and as yet BREIN haven’t formally identified any of the sites targeted. If past actions are anything to go by, they will try to avoid naming them for fear of giving them even more publicity.

That HD-UNiT3D is redirecting to BREIN’s homepage is both worrying and suspicious. Previously, BREIN simply asked the hosting providers to take the sites down or face the legal consequences. This is the first time that they appear to have gained some level of control over a domain, an action that is usually only taken by the authorities and not a private anti-piracy group. Whether this is the result of old-fashioned pressure or something else will remain to be seen.

We will update this post as more information becomes available.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

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The long-running battle between anti-piracy group BREIN and a Usenet community reached a Dutch court room this week. For their part, the FTD newsgroup portal wants the courts to issue a declaration that they operate legally. On the other hand, BREIN insists that publishing the locations of copyright material is illegal and tantamount to directly publishing it. On that basis BREIN is demanding a permanent injunction against FTD’s operations.

In the Court of Haarlem on Monday, Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN met with the operators of Usenet community FTD for the hearing of their long-standing copyright dispute.

According to BREIN, FTD is a service which allows users to easily but illegally download movies, TV shows and music. FTD see themselves differently and state that they only allow their members to point out where such content might be found on Usenet.

A statement sent to TorrentFreak by FTD lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet of Ictrecht law firm noted that the four hour long hearing took place in the largest court room available but generated enough interest to still become crowded.

Lawyer Gijsbert Brunt began by outlining how FTD operates. He argued that FTD allows users to report or ‘spot’ where material may be found on Usenet, but does nothing more than this, adding that FTD does not upload any content to users, nor does it offer users any downloads.

Brunt further argued that FTD’s service is not even necessary to download content from Usenet and is not, as BREIN claims, an “entertainment shopping” service from where movies can be downloaded.

As part of their argument, BREIN referred to an earlier legal battle between FTD and the movie studio, Eyeworks.

In that case, a court ruled that by allowing the publication of ‘spots’ detailing the location of an unauthorized movie stored on Usenet, FTD effectively became the publisher of that movie as if they had actually hosted it on their own servers.

“The court in The Hague already determined that FTD provided access to unauthorized copies of a Dutch movie,” BREIN chief Tim Kuik told TorrentFreak in a statement.

“FTD is like a downloadshop providing access keys to unauthorized content. Therefore BREIN agrees with the court in The Hague that deemed FTD is making available without permission of the right holder and therefore directly infringing copyright itself even though the content itself is stored and downloaded from Usenet.”

Coincidentally, the appeal of that particular decision will be heard this week in The Hague. Needless to say, the outcome could prove of particular relevance to this case.

BREIN argued in court Monday that FTD is a portal which “organizes and promotes” illicit content making it easy for users to download it from Usenet. The anti-piracy group said that this “unlocking” of newsgroup content by FTD amounts to them publishing it and asked the judge to consider that in the light of the Eyeworks ruling, not only is FTD illegal but also a direct infringer of copyright.

Even if the Court does not eventually consider FTD to be a direct infringer, BREIN says that FTD still acts in a similar manner to other sites who have previously lost lawsuits in The Netherlands including Zoekmp3, ShareConnector, Mininova and The Pirate Bay. The anti-piracy group argued that all of these sites illegally used the availability of copyright content as a business model.

“In previous cases courts ruled that comparable business models were acting unlawful without saying the activity amounted to direct infringement,” Kuik told us yesterday.

“The point is that such business models structurally make use of the availability of unauthorized content. Even if it is not deemed infringement itself, it still is unlawful,” he added.

In an apparent reference to the earlier “filtering” rulings handed down against both Mininova and The Pirate Bay, BREIN argued in court that FTD should also have to check (filter/moderate) the potential copyright status of material before allowing the publication of their Usenet locations.

BREIN said that moderation of ‘spots’ does take place on the FTD service, but only on quality grounds, never due to copyright concerns.

Countering, FTD insist that since it is legal to download copyrighted material in The Netherlands, they have no duty to remove such ‘spots’. BREIN, however, see things differently and believe that commercial use of illicit material constitutes an infringement of copyright.

Lawyer Gijsbert Brunt reiterated that FTD is not responsible for the material uploaded to, or downloaded from, Usenet.

The Court’s decision is due to be handed down on or soon after 7th November 2010.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

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A Dutch court has ruled that two of the largest ISPs in the Netherlands don’t have block customer access to The Pirate Bay. According to the court, there is no evidence that the majority of the ISPs‘ users are infringing copyright through The Pirate Bay, so a block would not be justified.

Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN has been successful in court against the alleged operators of The Pirate Bay, but despite several court orders the site is still accessible to the public.

Because the operators of the site fail to take the site offline in The Netherlands, BREIN has extended its focus to Internet providers. This tactic has been pioneered successfully in both Italy and Denmark, but today The Hague’s Court decided that The Pirate Bay wont be blocked in The Netherlands.

BREIN wanted the largest ISP in The Netherlands, Ziggo, to implement a DNS and IP address block of The Pirate Bay, with any future domain names and IP addresses of the site to be blocked within 24 hours of notification by BREIN. The Court, however, argued that blocking all customer access to The Pirate Bay goes too far.

The Court ruled that there is no evidence that the majority of the customers are using The Pirate Bay to infringe copyright. If BREIN wants to stop the actions of individual customers it has to go after them separately. Blocking the entire Pirate Bay site is unjustified in this case, the Court concluded.

BREIN initially started a case against the ISP Ziggo, but rival XS4ALL joined to avoid a legal precedent which could have negative implications for the basic principles of the Internet. The company argued that if the case was lost, the ruling could have far-reaching consequences for both ISPs and Internet users.

With the present verdict the tide seems to be turning in Europe. In recent years both Italian and Danish providers were ordered to censor The Pirate Bay. However, in the last two weeks courts have ruled in favor of the ISPs in Belgium and The Netherlands.

Two weeks ago, BREIN’s counterpart in Belgium lost its case where it requested local ISPs to restrict user access to The Pirate Bay. A judge at the Antwerp Commercial Court rejected the blocking demands and labeled them “disproportionate”, similar to today’s verdict in The Netherlands.

Despite having lost this preliminary case, BREIN is expected to go ahead with a full trial against Ziggo. The anti-piracy outfit sees an ISP block as the only option left to stop The Pirate Bay. The verdicts they won against the site’s operators aren’t worth much since ‘the world’s most resilient torrent site’ is still very much alive in The Netherlands.

BREIN chief Tim Kuik was approached for comment but did not immediately respond.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

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Earlier this year, TorrentFreak exclusively revealed that in yet another attempt to cause damage to The Pirate Bay, Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN had begun threatening an ISP.

Ziggo is the largest cable Internet provider in The Netherlands and in 2009 generated nearly 1.3 billion euros in revenue from 7.2 million Internet, TV and telephone customers. In April BREIN demanded that it stop providing customer access to The Pirate Bay via a DNS and IP address block.

Non-compliance would result in legal action under Article 6:162 of the Dutch Civil Code. Ziggo, however, refused to comply.

“There is no legal basis for this request,” said the company in an announcement. “We are just a conduit. We provide people access to the Internet and have nothing to do with that website. Moreover, we favor public Internet.”

Now it appears that Ziggo is receiving support in its fight from one of its competitors. ISP XS4ALL will join its rival in fighting the proceedings brought by BREIN.

XS4ALL says that it is against censorship and is intervening in the hope that they can help avoid a legal precedent which could have negative implications for the basic principles of the Internet. The company argues that if the case was lost, the ruling could have far-reaching consequences for both ISPs and Internet users.

While ISPs can be held responsible for material held on their own servers, generally they cannot be held responsible for the content of traffic generated by others.

“The basic principle of the Internet is that ISPs pass on traffic to their customers unfiltered, they are merely a gateway,” says Niels Huijbregts, spokesman for XS4ALL. “The Pirate Bay website is not hosted on a Ziggo server, so Ziggo can’t be held responsible for restricting access to the website. BREIN is targeting the wrong people.”

Tim Kuik, the boss of BREIN, sees things quite differently.

“This is not about censorship but about the basic principles of law which we live by,” he explained. “Democracy only works if we follow the rules, something the illegal Pirate Bay fundamentally does not. The law also states that there is no right of access to illegal websites. That is something that Ziggo and XS4ALL have overlooked.”

Christiaan Alberdingk, XS4ALL’s lawyer and partner at SOLV law firm is clear on what the ISPs are trying to avoid when the case goes to court in The Hague on June 28.

“When we start shutting down sites foreign sites in The Netherlands, that is a disproportionate restriction on our freedom to gather information. That does not fit into a democratic country like ours.”

Article from: TorrentFreak.

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For the music and movie industries, the blocking of file-sharing websites and/or the filtering of links they carry is fast becoming a fashionable weapon of choice. Perhaps the most famous example was the assault on Mininova, which culminated in the site having to remove huge numbers of torrents which may (or indeed may not) point to copyright content.

That action was forced by Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN who are making more than their fair share of headlines recently, and who are about to make even more. While successfully demanding that Mininova remove links to infringing content, BREIN have never really made inroads into getting the actual infringing content removed from the Internet – but all that could be about to change.

In a fairly bold move even by their standards, the anti-piracy group headed up by Tim Kuik has initiated legal action to force a Usenet service provider, much like Giganews or Newshosting, to start proactively filtering content from the worldwide newsgroup system.

The small seven-employee Usenet company News-Service.com is being sued by BREIN on claims that it facilitates copyright infringement and is demanding that the company ceases to offer copyright material or face fines of 50,000 euros per day.

Technical director of News-Service.com Patrick Schreurs strongly refutes BREIN’s claims and says that his company only provides access to Usenet and maintains that it is a mere conduit of information.

“BREIN’s move is comparable to suing a postal service for shipping illicit goods,” he said.

Schreurs’ assertion that trying to check up to 20 million daily Usenet messages is an impossibility raises a very real concern. If a legal requirement to filter perfectly, as was the case with Mininova, is implemented against News-Service (on pain of 50,000 euros per day in fines) the company could not carry this burden for long. If BREIN gets their way, Schreurs says the company will have to stop providing Usenet access.

News-Service already operates a Notice-and-Takedown system but, as was the case with Mininova, BREIN is not satisfied with its scope or performance.

“We were under the assumption that with this procedure we met the wishes of BREIN and that we would work on a solution together,” said Schreurs. “We regret the fact that BREIN has chosen a different course with this [legal] action.”

The case, the first of its type against a Usenet provider in The Netherlands, was heard on April 19th and the judge is expected to announce his decision early next month.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

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