BREIN closes 16 Dutch sites
p2p news / p2pnet: Dutch entertainment cartel enforcement unit BREIN is responsible for the closure of 16 BitTorrent sites, including NLexperience.com and DikkeDonder.
BRIEN, “seized assets belonging to DikkeDonder’s owner, including a bank account and car, to ensure payment of damages,” says a press release, according to Slyck’s Michael Ingram.
The BREIN statement apparently doesn’t explain how a purely commercial industry group is able to “seize” property.
NLexperience.com, which runs a private tracker with around 10,000 users, was, “initially forced offline by after BRIEN pressured their ISP, but the site relocated to Russia,” says Slyck, going on:
“The NLexperience team allege BREIN visited the home of the domain owner on the forth anniversary of his daughter`s death. The date was well known by the site members, so NLexperince believe it was more than coincidence. NLexperience promise to return, but BREIN are warning they will claim damages of â¬5, 000 (6,000 USD) per day, plus an additional â¬500 (600 USD) per infringing file being traded by their users if the site does choose to reopen.”
BREIN is also demanding personal data on site employees, says the post.
Also See:
Slyck – BREIN Claims Victory Over 16 Dutch BitTorrent Sites, February 1, 2006
February 12th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
“BREIN is also demanding personal data on site employees…”
Sounds to me like they are trying to say employees=job. In otherwords if you work a job the reflection of job is that you make money to do so. Yet another spin as most sites I know of don’t pay.
Again the only hold they have to make things stick is if they can prove profit. (oh, there’s infringement to be certain but it is beginning to look more and more like that profit motive is the strong point.) Without hooking to “for profit” their cases are far weaker. Even the “for profit” is fairly weak if you actually look at the money they are talking about. Crap most true pirates that copy and sell would make more money than a website. The majority of websites I know of just make enough to pay the bills if they are lucky.
I notice that strangely missing is the names of the other sites. It looks like they went after “splash value” here. They named two larger sites, what about the others? I suspect they don’t have the same value and are collateral damage rather than actual prime targets.