p2pnet news view Freedom | P2P:- The entertainment cartels are not only using legal systems around the world to enslave the people who keep them in business, they’re also employing copyright laws to smash anything which looks even remotely like competition.

Holland’s MiniNova is the latest to feel the hammer in the shape of BREIN, the Dutch corporate copyright enforcement unit.

BREIN went to court to have thousands of MiniNova files removed and yesterday, DutchNews.nl reported the index site has been, ordered to remove all copyright-protected material from its website within three months or face fines as high as €5m (about $7,137,328)”.

MiniNova had already, “pledged to remove copyrighted material when alerted to its presence,”  said the story.  But, The judge said that although Mininova did not break copyright legislation itself, if did allow users to do so and ordered it to remove all suspect links within three months.

However, as a p2pnet Reader’s Write points out, the guys at MiniNova haven’t given up.

On the MiniNova blog, a court in Utrecht ruled BitTorrent platform Mininova acted unlawfully, it says.

But the site has three months to appeal and from the look of the post, an appeal is in the cards.

The post continues »»»

The court did not agree with Brein on all demands. Specifically, it ruled that Mininova does not infringe copyright and neighboring rights. The court also found Mininova can not be expected to remove files that are reasonably likely refer to infringing material.

Remarkably, the verdict does not give any consideration to the fact that Mininova has developed a content filter for Brein, nor to the cooperation between Mininova and other organizations of rights holders. This surprises Mininova, because it has always stressed the importance of cooperation.

Erik Dubbelboer, co-founder of Mininova: We are obviously not satisfied with this ruling. The result of this ruling for Mininova is that we have to reevaluate our business operations. At this time, we cannot determine what this will actually entail or imply. We will have to examine the verdict thoroughly first. We are considering to appeal this judgment.

Stay tuned.

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First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi

thousands of MiniNova files – Remove `infringing torrents` MiniNova ordered, August 26, 2009
DutchNews.nl – File-sharing site Mininova loses in court, August 26, 2009
MiniNova blog – Mininova considers appealing in Brein case, August 26, 2009

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This entry was posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 8:32 am and is filed under Freedom, P2P. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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