MPAA and BREIN shut down 29 file-sharing sites

Matthew DeCarlo

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The MPAA and Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN have collaborated to disable the domains of 29 BitTorrent, Usenet and other file-sharing sites accused of illegally linking to music, movies, TV shows and games. Despite serving Dutch users, the sites avoided Dutch law by being hosted in the US.

"This year we have made over 600 of these sites inaccessible," said BREIN's Tim Kuik. "These 29 apparently thought that in America they could go undisturbed. That is incorrect," Kuik said, noting that BREIN could shut down sites in other countries with the aid of foreign colleagues like the MPAA.

The affected sites haven't been released as Kuik believes it would only amount to free publicity (the sites should be back online once they find a new hosting service). It's believed that hd-united.com is one of the disabled sites as it was redirecting visitors to BREIN's homepage at one point.


That last tidbit is a little troublesome. TorrentFreak suggests that, not only has a private anti-piracy outfit forced a US hosting provider to disable sites without legal intervention, but it's a foreign organization, and they were granted enough power over the domain to redirect its traffic.

Call us paranoid, but that's a slippery slope, no matter your stance on copyright infringement. What's stopping other foreign groups from making a phone call and shutting down US sites because their content (or linked content, in this case) is deemed illegal in another country?

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Facebook is g-a-y anyway. No one cares, everyone laughs at each other.
 
The laws becomes blurrier by the day ...i wander how the future laws will be, or they will be just as a reference/guide.
 
This is why strict net neutrality laws are needed... I don't agree with piracy, though I don't think a hosting provider should grab their ankles just because the MPAA or some other foreign anti-piracy group tells them to. If a site violates the hosting provider's TOS, fine, give them a warning and/or shut it down, though shutting it down under pressure from thugs like the MPAA? Give me a break! The FCC's idea of net neutrality is an absolute joke, and Obama's limp wristed stance on it isn't making things look any brighter for it either. The RIAA, MPAA, and other groups like them, are EXTREMELY dangerous to the future of the legal system in the USA.
 
Formerly we suffered from crimes; now we suffer from laws. -- Publius Cornelius Tacitus
 
funny thing that the piratebay is still going strong ... :) you cant stop em all..

I guess if you cant handle the big guys, you attack the smaller ones that no one uses or ever heard of
 
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