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BREIN battles Euro web pirates

BREIN battles Euro web pirates

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) announced on 21 March that Dutch anti-piracy group, BREIN, has successfully triggered the take-down of illegal peer-to-peer (p2p) site, dsb-tracker.org. Its operator chose to remove the site himself after BREIN put the hosting service provider, Leaseweb, on notice. dsb-tracker had hosted links to a range of pirated games, films and songs for the benefit of 8,300 registered users. The operator had also been responsible for the similar site, dsb-scene.org, now removed.

In a press release, BREIN managing director, Tim Kuik, hinted that a disclosure threat may have been used in order to force the operator’s hand: ‘Although this action concerns smaller sites, we did consider requesting a name disclosure because the operator continued his activities after our notice.’

The last few months have been a busy time for BREIN. In November 2006, it served a cease-and-desist notice to extremepowertorrent.nl, which offered 1,500 music, film and game links to 20,000 users. Then, in January this year, it lobbied the Hague district court to assist in taking down dutchtorrent.org, after KPN – the largest Dutch service provider – refused to take action. The court ruled that KPN’s refusal was unlawful, as it facilitated copyright infringement.

Following the dutchtorrent case, Kuik said: ‘[in 2006] BREIN took down 115 illegal p2p sites with 1.5 million registered users. If an illegal website does not comply, we demand takedown of the site from its service provider. We also demand disclosure of the name and address details of the subscriber in case we cannot find those details ourselves.’

BREIN is the Dutch acronym for Protection Rights Entertainment Industry Netherlands, and is also Dutch for ‘brain’.

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