James Delahunty
13 Feb 2006 13:18
Dutch anti-piracy foundation BREIN is touting the closure of 16 BitTorrent sites. The group claims it is part of its effort to "serve and protect authors, artists, producers and distributors of creative entertainment product against commercially significant theft of copyright and neighbouring rights". Among the sites involved are NLexperience.com, DikkeDonder.nl, vplaza.nl, zerocool.nl and torrentmonkey.com.
"Owners of illegal P2P sites knowingly breach copyright laws and take part in it. They know they are causing great damages. They take their advantage and do not do anything to stop the breach. This has to end," explains BREIN director Tim Tuik in a Dutch press release. BREIN claims to have seized assets of DikkeDonder's owner, including a bank account and car, to ensure damages are paid. The group estimates damages of at least €200,000.
In the case of NLexperience.com, the site was previously forced to relocate to Russia after BREIN pressured its ISP. The site ran a private tracker with 10,000 members. BREIN decided to visit the home of the domain owner, on the forth anniversary of his daughter's death, a matter that the site's team says is more than coincidence, since this date was well known among the members of the site. NLexperience currently has a message up explaining it will return under a different name due to intimidation against the domain owner.
BREIN has made it clear it doesn't want to see the site return, saying it will claim damages of €5,000 (6,000 USD) per day, plus an additional €500 (600 USD) per infringing file being traded by their users if the site does choose to reopen. It also demanded the name and addresses of other "employees" at the site. However, questions are already being raised about the information BREIN has provided.
The NLexperience team claims in its statement that it is in touch with DikkeDonder and that no assets have been seized. Also if BREIN did force down 16 sites, then why only mention a few? "I have no clue how they got to that number of 16 sites. I'm willing to bet 14 of those weren't more then a forum with 10 users." Arjan, who works at the adult tracker puretna.com, told Slyck. "As long as BREIN only names 3 sites as examples, we know for sure they're blagging. Any self respecting piracy hunter would display their trophies and not name only 3 out of 16."
We'll sit back and let the propeganda and spin settle, then keep you guys updated.
Source:
Slyck