A total of 1483 infringing domains were reported to the Dutch anti-piracy organization BREIN (Dutch for “Brain”) in 2023, of which 423 were unique, said its 2023 annual report, published in mid-June 2024.
BREIN’s approach targets all forms of illegal supply regardless of the technology used to do so. For example, bittorrent, cyberlockers, usenet, IPTV and websites or social media that link to illegal sources, as well as streamripping sites and illegal supply on auction (or ‘supply and demand’) sites of files and physical carriers; even vinyl records – which have experienced a renaissance in recent years.
BREIN found that Bittorrent remained “a popular protocol for illegal use of all types of content but streaming and download link sites for cyberlockers with music and video are also finding a lot of demand. For audiovisual content and live sports, illegal IPTV subscriptions with Video-On-Demand (VOD) are by far the biggest culprit. Bittorrent, streaming and link sites generate revenue mainly through advertising, although they also earn from the sale of subscriptions and VPN.”
Numbers
BREIN carried out the following numbers of enforcement actions in 2023. All actions concern music, video (films and series), books, writings, images and games, unless otherwise stated. Many of the items in this list are linked to Web pages that provide further detail behind these statistics.
- 615 investigations completed, 59 ongoing
- 610 illegal sites/services removed
- 9 (clusters of) sites and 423 unique proxies/mirrors dynamically blocked on IP and/or DNS
- Google delisted 256 unique domains related to the blocked sites
- 501 proxies/mirrors stopped
- 14 illegal traders IPTV/VOD subscriptions stopped; 11 ongoing investigations
- 34 IPTV ads removed by Google (started in Q4)
- 14 streaming sites taken offline
- 23 major uploaders, administrators and/or scripters investigated and stopped
- 132,455 Google search results removed
- 3,739 interventions involving the removal of online ads for illegal copies
- 41 settlements, including 12 ‘knock & talks’
- 2 online cases involving physical media were settled
- 3 checks carried out at record fairs, 49 records seized
Further reading
Annual Report 2023. Web site / Landing page. June 13, 2024. BREIN
List of actions by BREIN against infringers published in WAMCA register (Act on Settlement of Mass Claims in Collective Action). Landing page. Accessed July 5, 2024.
Why it matters
BREIN (Bescherming Rechten Entertainment Industrie Nederland – or in English, The Foundation for the Protection of the Rights of the Entertainment Industry of the Netherlands), supports enforcement against piracy in the Netherlands on behalf of its affiliates (including makers, rights-holders, distributors, performing artists, publishers, producers and distributors of music, films, series, books, writings, images and games).
BREIN …”see(s) that in general, there is growing government attention to enforcement against online abuse. This is obviously due to the social damage caused by excesses on social media. Neutral intermediaries are expected to take responsibility for that. That is where BREIN’s case law gives direction. In terms of large-scale infringement, we saw FIOD (Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Police) and the Public Prosecutor’s Office take their largest ever criminal action against an illegal IPTV network in response to a report by BREIN.
“New blocking by access providers and Google of access to international illegal sites is (continuing to increase). More and more illegal ‘private torrent trackers’ and ‘usenet communities’ are taken down. While the Dutch Supreme Court ruled in a case from 2011 that a usenet provider was not itself infringing at the time, such providers today have to have an effective Notice & Take Down system and take additional measures against illegal offerings.”
