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The Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has been fighting pirates of all kinds for the past 25 years. BREIN's latest annual report covering 2022 reveals that it has completed 458 investigations and shut down 449 pirate sites. That's 100 more than what BREIN reported for 2021. The pirates are clearly persistent, but BREIN is always up for a fight.
Predicting whether specific torrent sites, streaming portals, or IPTV services will still be around five years from now is difficult at best. In the worst case, almost impossible.
The Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has been taking on pirates of all kinds for the past 25 years. Not only has it seen large numbers come and go, BREIN can claim direct responsibility for thousands going offline. A relentless production line of pirate platforms means that BREIN's existence five years from now seems easier to predict.
458 investigations, 449 sites/services removed
Released this week, BREIN's annual report for 2022 covers enforcement actions taken on behalf of rights holders in most sectors, including movies, TV shows, music, games and publishing.
BREIN says it completed 458 investigations in 2022, leading to the removal of 449 illegal sites/services from the internet. BREIN refrains from publicly naming its targets, but these figures are certainly not unusual. BREIN reported the closure of 349 offending platforms in 2021 and 466 in 2020.
While rebranded returning sites may play some role in these persistently high numbers, the fact that full pirate sites can now be deployed in minutes could be a bigger factor. But whatever the circumstances, BREIN has a tool for every occasion.
Prevent big sites from getting bigger
The Netherlands has long been associated with large hacking platforms, but not necessarily because they were operated or hosted there. BREIN's persistence on the legal front means that some of the biggest torrent sites (The Pirate Bay, RARBG, 1337x, YTS, EZTV, LimeTorrents and KickassTorrents variants) are now dynamically locked by major ISPs under the terms of a Website Blocking Pact.
By the end of 2022, 196 proxies and mirrors were also blocked by IP address and/or DNS. BREIN further reports that an additional 328 proxies were 'stopped' by other means last year.
Until relatively recently, the sites mentioned above could still be found in Google search results, but BREIN helped change that too.
In cooperation with Google at the end of 2021, Pirate Bay domains were deindexed of the search results. By the end of 2022, Google had deindexed all seven of the aforementioned torrent sites โ 341 unique domains according to BREIN.
For domains and URLs not covered by the above, BREIN sends takedown notices directly to Google. In 2022, BREIN removed 290,324 results from Google search.
Other compliance strategies and actions
In the event that users manage to circumvent the above, landing on a blocked site or any number of larger (and smaller) platforms, BREIN has several options available.
One is to interfere with a platform's ability to generate revenue through advertising. In 2022, BREIN says it "targeted" 36 advertisers doing business on pirated sites and carried out 2,869 interventions against ads promoting infringing content.
Since all pirate sites and services need people to run them, deliver content, and in some cases sell a particular product, BREIN also targets key people in these roles.
Last year, BREIN says it brought in the activities of 19 of the world's leading shippers, administrators and 'scriptwriters' until the end. It also arrested 19 IPTV/VOD subscription dealers.
During the year, BREIN reached 45 settlements with individuals accused of various types of infringing activities. This included 16 unwanted home visits, also known as "call and talk."
In some of these cases, BREIN had already obtained a ex parte court order to restrict infringing activity, so not opening the door wouldn't have helped.
The BREIN Annual Report 2022 can be found here
