"Thank you all for the great time we had together," a message on Dutchnova.com reads.

The site, once the largest Dutch tracker with over 25, 000 registered users, is the latest victim of BREIN, who claim to have shutdown 39 out of 90 Dutch BitTorrent sites.

Most of these sites are very small, most likely hosted by teenagers as a part-time project, or a doomed get-rich-quick scheme.

Despite their extra size, it did not take much to knock Dutchnova offline. A simple letter to their host, Denit Services, did the trick.

"We have heard from our host that the BREIN organisation has sent them an accusation for distributing copyrighted files and that there was some 'financial motives' to run the site,” a Dutch announcement explains on Dutchnova.com.

"The relationship with our host is worth a lot to us, and therefore will we accept the request of our host to take the website offline."

The move by BREIN is “pure intimidation,” according to “Divxlover”, who used to volunteer at Dutchnova.

“It's just a default letter that looks like an official charge against the website, which they sent to scare off people that don't know better. They say we ran the site for financial gain, but we never earned money from adverts,” he said.

BREIN claim that “webmasters know that it’s all illegal” and allege they are profiting from selling VIP services, rather than simply collecting donations.

As such, the anti-piracy group have requested the site operator’s name and address from all the six hosts which have been contacted.

BREIN has demanded Dutchnova publicly state on their site that they were illegally distributing copyright works and promise never to put up another BitTorrent or related site again. BREIN also want to negotiate financial compensation.

If all demands are met, they will not push ahead with legal action. According to the BREIN press release, if the police where to secure a conviction against a BitTorrent tracker, the webmaster could face up to four years of jail and a fine up to €45,000 ($54,000).

According to Divxlover, to ensure the safety of their users, Dutchnova have destroyed their entire database and records.

Netherlands based “Rex”, who is a co-webmaster for myBittorrent, told Slyck, “BREIN has no legal powers - it’s just an organisation with a few people in it like you and me. They just have a lot of money so they can sue people.”

Mininova, which is now perhaps the most trafficked BitTorrent site, have their servers based in the Netherlands, but are not fazed by the news.

“We're a search engine and directory, we're not hosting a tracker or a similar service, our site is 100% legal,” site administrator Niek told Slyck.

More over, Mininova is still growing.

“I'm just ordering a new server to hold the load,” Niek added optimistically.

Time will tell if BREIN has the strength to take on the major BitTorrent players.

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

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