The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN have collaborated to disable at least 51 torrent sites, which published links to copyrighted movies. 12 of them were based in the US while the remaining 39 were from the Netherlands, according to Ars Technica.
The two groups contacted the websites' hosting providers to take them offline. Names of the affected sites was not released because the organizations want to deter P2P users from finding them elsewhere if they pop up under new domains.
"New sites are popping up, but we take these down faster and faster so they can't gain an audience," Tim Kuik, BREIN's director, said in a statement. "Our goal is to limit the availability of illegal sites so people rather use legal platforms. BREIN doesn't publish any names because some sites relocate and start over elsewhere." The MPAA did not release a comment at all.
Last month, the two groups shut down 29 file-sharing websites hosted in the US. BREIN has been quite successful in using other anti-piracy groups such as the MPAA as a way to extend its reach beyond Dutch borders.