BREIN has apparently taken down no fewer than 75 Dutch based BitTorrent sites, as reported in their press release today. The 72 sites were part of an elaborate hierarchy and made money from preferential treatment related to donations. With BREIN on an enforcement roll in the Netherlands, it's surprising that any BitTorrent operator would continue operation in such a climate.

"The sites were managed by several different people but all made use of the same model that they got in franchise from the same person," the press release states. "The sites made money by giving preferential treatment to users that paid a ‘donation’. Such users were enabled to unlimited download of illegal content for a period. Never before were so many illegal peer-to-peer file sharing sites taken down simultaneously."

BREIN would not divulge who the lead BitTorrent site/individual was.

According to BREIN, the civil enforcement action was taken against Allmypower.org, Luckytorrents.org, Allmymovies.org, Digi-tor.org and Seederstor.org - amongst many others.

“Clearly this is an organisation aimed at illegally making money by systematically organizing the theft of other people’s creative work through a chain of relatively small sites”, says BREIN director Tim Kuik. “Knowingly linking to illegal content is illegal. These sites did so structurally. They are party to a crime.”

If BREIN's press release is accurate, the 75 sites were a tightly organized money-making machine. The sites were taken offline through a civil complaint to the fiscal police, however, BREIN states their investigation is ongoing. Additionally, further action may be taken as information provided by BREIN, especially about the operation's leader, is furnished to the police.

This story is filed in these Slyck News categories
BitTorrent :: Trackers/Indexers

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