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Dutch Anti-Piracy Group to Sue Torrent Site Mininova

By: Justin Bourne

Posted: 05/21/2008

HOOFDDORP, Netherlands - Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has announced plans to take BitTorrent site Mininova to court. 

BREIN consists of authors, artists, and music and film producers who hope the court will force Mininova to filter search results so that all .torrent files that may point to unauthorized content are removed. The outcome of the case is expected to impact the future of BitTorrent sites, as well as Google and YouTube. 

Mininova has been touted as the largest BitTorrent site in the world, with more than 30 million unique visitors per month. 

Mininova displays user-submitted torrents and carries legitimate premium content from publishers such as CBC, according to TorrentFreak. The site does not offer its own BitTorrent tracker. 

According to Tim Kuik, managing director of BREIN, Mininova's business model is based on illegal activity. 

"A notice-and-takedown procedure is absolutely insufficient for a site that makes use of unauthorized files, structurally and systematically," he told TorrentFreak. 

Mininova co-founder Erik Dubbelboer said the company will not cave in to pressure from BREIN. 

"We will proceed to court with full confidence," he said. "We operate within the law, as we maintain our notice-and-takedown policy. That is, we remove search results if a copyright holder asks us to." 

Mininova and BREIN reportedly have been seeking a mutually beneficial agreement over the past year.