BREIN Wins Court Case Against Prolific Torrent and Usenet Uploader

[Matrix]

 

Acting on behalf of various copyright holders, Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has won a court case against an uploader at torrent and Usenet sites. The man, who was also a sysop at the sites, must remove his uploads and provide information on any accomplices. According to BREIN, evidence clearly shows that commercial Usenet companies are involved with the operation of pirate sites.

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has targeted operators and uploaders of pirate sites for more than a decade.

 

The group frequently approaches alleged wrongdoers with a proposal to settle the matter privately, but it doesn’t shy away from going to court if needed.

 

This is what happened to a prolific uploader of torrents and Usenet files. The man was connected to Place2home, a piracy community that was dismantled by BREIN last year. At the time, several operators settled the matter privately, but the uploader didn’t.

 

This prompted BREIN to take the man to court where he stood accused of sharing hundreds of gigabytes of pirated films and series. These were uploaded using aliases including “Starlight” and “Serie-Team.”

 

According to Dutch court records, the man was also active as an operator of both Place2home.org and Place2home.net, which offered Usenet and torrent files respectively.

 

In his defense, the man, whose name is abbreviated to “Van S,” admitted that he uploaded files. However, he denies that this happened on the scale and with the volume BREIN claimed. According to ‘Van S,’ his role was minimal as others were posting under the same aliases.

 

After reviewing the available evidence, the Utrecht Court sided with BREIN. It concluded that “Van S” was more than “an occasional” uploader and that he was also involved in operating the sites.

 

Part of the evidence comes from a WhatsApp chat log where ‘Van S,’ using the “Starlight” alias, admits to uploading movies and TV-series totaling 500 gigabytes in February of last year. The same chat also shows that he was well aware of the infringing nature of these files.

 

Based on this and other evidence the Court concludes that ‘Van S’ shared infringing content on a large scale between 2013 and 2018. In addition, he facilitated copyright infringement through his role as sysop of the two Place2home sites.

 

The verdict doesn’t cover any damages, but ‘Van S’ is ordered to pay BREIN’s legal fees, which total over €13,000. In addition, the man is required to remove his uploads and provide information about others who were involved with Place2home. The latter is important, as it may lead to additional suspects.

 

Failing to comply with the order will come at a high price. The Court notes that ‘Van S’ must pay a penalty of €5,000 per day that he doesn’t come forward, with a maximum of €150,000.

 

BREIN director Tim Kuik is happy with the outcome. The verdict shows that, in addition to uploaders, site operators can be held responsible as well. This is in line with the EU Court of Justice’s ruling in The Pirate Bay case, Kuik informs TorrentFreak.

 

The Place2home bust itself has also proven to be useful in the broader scheme of things. According to BREIN, it revealed that people higher up the chain were involved as well. This includes reseller Newsconnection, which offered subscriptions to Usenet provider XSnews.

 

“According to statements of uploaders who already settled, the sites were financed by people up the chain,” Kuik tells TorrentFreak.

 

These uploaders also shared internal communication which backed this up. That includes WhatsApp conversations, which also appeared as evidence in the most recent court case.

 

“To us, it is evident that the various players on the commercial Usenet market are colluding to optimize the availability of popular content on Usenet. This is completely different from the original Usenet,” Kuik notes.

 

BREIN believes that Usenet resellers and providers profit from piracy, and not just indirectly. In some cases, they are financing pirate sites as well, in order to keep their businesses profitable. With information from people such as ‘Van S,’ BREIN hopes to document these connections.

 

“We believe that the money makers on Usenet who are pretending to be ignorant are in fact are fully aware of what pays the bills: access to unauthorized content. They are facilitating it and financing it,” Kuik says.  

 

A copy of the verdict from the Utrecht Court is available here, in Dutch (pdf).

 

source

[mp68terr]

28 minutes ago, Mach1 said:

That includes WhatsApp conversations, which also appeared as evidence in the most recent court case.

One more reason not to use WhatsApp, and the like, for important matters. Fully encrypted chain has to be preferred.

[steven36]

1 hour ago, mp68terr said:

One more reason not to use WhatsApp, and the like, for important matters. Fully encrypted chain has to be preferred.

People who use BitTorrent that use there real IP  in the Netherlands get caught if they seed a lot .They dont really come after people unless there ‘Frequent’ Seeders.  A VPN can get around  it .  Whats app  is not what got him caught it was his Usenet  provider Newsconnection's owner, XSnews was court ordered to give up those users data last year. Only thing that Whats app did  was prove to the court what BRIEN  already knew they  had been watching his ip a long time  . There watching everyone's  in the Netherlands IP .

 

According to Newsconnection's owner, XSnews paid the legal fees for the lawsuit BREIN had filed against him. In this case, last year he was obliged by the Court of Appeal of Den Bosch to design his service in such a way that upon request he could disclose the identity of uploaders and other customers . After BREIN submitted evidence and confiscation results related to its role to the Place2Home sites, the operator hired Newsconnection.

 

More info here

http://torrentinvites.org/f31/netherlands-bulk-uploader-must-pay-150-000-eur-559684/

Also here by bother Mach1

 

[mp68terr]

1 hour ago, Mach1 said:

Part of the evidence comes from a WhatsApp chat log...

 

1 hour ago, Mach1 said:

WhatsApp conversations, which also appeared as evidence...

 

The comment was not about IP, bittorent, vpn, usenet, etc. Was wondering how brein and the court got readable documents from whatsapp (supposedly using the signal protocol to encrypt conversations), as stated in the first post?

[Sylence]

8 hours ago, mp68terr said:

One more reason not to use WhatsApp, and the like, for important matters. Fully encrypted chain has to be preferred.

 

like Telegram?

[mp68terr]

9 minutes ago, Sylence said:

like Telegram?

Probably not.

"Default Messages and media in Telegram are encrypted when stored on its servers, but can be accessed by the Telegram service provider, who holds the encryption keys."

Or maybe through the 'secret' option: "In addition Telegram provides optional end-to-end encrypted "secret" chats between two online users, yet not for groups or channels." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(software)

[Guest]

10 hours ago, mp68terr said:

Probably not.

"Default Messages and media in Telegram are encrypted when stored on its servers, but can be accessed by the Telegram service provider, who holds the encryption keys."

Or maybe through the 'secret' option: "In addition Telegram provides optional end-to-end encrypted "secret" chats between two online users, yet not for groups or channels." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(software)

So what would be alternative for WhatsApp and Telegram then for more secured chats then?

[mp68terr]

5 hours ago, Edward Raja said:

alternative for WhatsApp and Telegram

For example signal, threema, qtox messengers seem better to use for private messaging. Until someone shows/reports that there are leaks too.

Experts could tell us.