AfterDawn: Tech news

Torrent 'franchise' leader gets summoned

Written by Andre Yoskowitz @ 08 Feb 2009 9:41 User comments (8)

Torrent 'franchise' leader gets summoned BREIN, the Dutch anti-piracy outfit, has announced the complete shutdown of a torrent site "franchise hierarchy" that were all run by an individual who went under the name "Topspinner."
Last month the outfit took action against 75 torrent sites, each of which used similar templates and charged a fee on sign up. That fee allowed users to download all they want for a certain period of time.

During the initial raids however, the individual in charge managed to slip away but BREIN has now identified and summoned "Topspinner."

"The owner of the sites which almost all were registered under the alias Topspinner stayed in hiding after the Dutch take down and moved a number of his sites to a German hosting provider. After summons to the German provider, the sites ran to France and Belgium, and finally, after further summons, to Denmark. In meantime BREIN identified the 45 year old man from the Dutch town of Oudenbosch and summoned him yesterday,"
said BREIN in a statement.



All the sites now bear the following message: “We are required to stop because of the BREIN foundation. We want to thank everyone for their support and cooperation through the times. All information on the server has been destroyed and cannot be used anymore.”

According to Slyck the remaining sites to be shut down this week are: Alleen-films, Alleenmuz, Allpowers, Almijnfilms, Bigbits, Brabotors, Delerz, Desoftwaregigant, Digi-tors, Luciferadream, Luckytor, Meerdelers, Mijnpoezen, Pandaberen, Seederstors, Streamtor, Thc-torrents, Torrentsland and Twee-buiken.

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8 user comments

18.2.2009 21:52

Very nice and interesting article, but the grammar needs some editing.

28.2.2009 23:44

I'm not sure what is up with the current grammar attacks against the news team. I am curious as to why that is happening but that is an entirely different topic.

On the topic at hand, I think it is stupid that "Topspinner" had a bunch of sites that all had similar layouts and charges to join them.

I guess the guy thought he really could hide behind a computer screen or something because running that many sites with very similar looks is bound to get you noticed in exactly the way you don't want to be.

Peace

39.2.2009 03:06

Heres how I see it, running torrent sites and ranking in add rev is a crime, its no different than selling copied CDs,dvds,ect, however until they make non profit based distribution a victimless crime that's unenforceable I'd rather side with the pirates of brimmy way.

49.2.2009 03:29

he made money from warez he deserves to go to jail even scenesters will tell you that

59.2.2009 12:38

string him up by his bo**ocks, gives us "legitimate" pirates a bad name

69.2.2009 14:53
SamNz
Inactive

Originally posted by 21Q:
Very nice and interesting article, but the grammar needs some editing.
stop rating articles its annoying as hell

710.2.2009 17:49

people still pay to join torrent sites? all these dudes are doing is taking torrents from demonoid and tpb and reposting them on private trackers.

and pretty much every site i download from makes money from ads, how the hell else are they going to stay afloat? i love the fact that they are making loot off of piracy. they are making money and im still getting a movie for free. they are working within the free model, just like the move studios should be in the first place.

810.2.2009 18:00

Originally posted by georgeluv:
people still pay to join torrent sites? all these dudes are doing is taking torrents from demonoid and tpb and reposting them on private trackers.

and pretty much every site i download from makes money from ads, how the hell else are they going to stay afloat? i love the fact that they are making loot off of piracy. they are making money and im still getting a movie for free. they are working within the free model, just like the move studios should be in the first place.

The trouble is the free model should never make money.

It should be free with zero profit but the items traded, in cases of sites donations are legitimate but ad rev and what not not.

Of coarse I will lean heavily agisnt the current system of absolute control over distribution every time.

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