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The Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN says it has shut down a music piracy service that offered an illegal reserve of 350,000 tracks in exchange for an annual payment of 250 euros. That matter has now ended in a cash settlement, but five years ago, a man who performed similar service in the UK on a non-profit basis was jailed for a year.
The Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN is at the forefront of the battle against unlicensed services in the Netherlands.
In the last year alone, BREIN conducted 479 investigations that resulted in the 466 illegal sites shutdown and services, including torrent and streaming sites, IPTV providers, and platforms that distribute music without a proper license.
While BREIN has been hinting at criminal prosecutions for a while, the anti-piracy group tends to focus on civil actions. BREIN is certainly not shy about taking matters to court, but whenever it can, agreements and a cease-and-desist agreement may be enough to avoid more serious action.
BREIN Targets 350,000-Track DJ Record Group Service
Late last week, BREIN revealed an investigation into the operator of an online service that provided access to an illegal set of DJ records. Providing such a service requires extensive licenses from neighboring authors and rights holders, but according to BREIN, the man had not obtained the necessary permission.
The service was quite complete. BREIN estimates that the platform offered around 350,000 tracks to download but, unlike a normal pirate site, users were charged a subscription of 250 euros a year. This made it a for-profit company similar to those offered by illicit IPTV providers, for example.
Operation closed, agreement reached
It's unclear whether the DJ service reached the threshold for criminal enforcement measures in the Netherlands, but the for-profit distribution of copyrighted content certainly raises that prospect. However, in the case, BREIN decided to address the matter on its own and, as a result, evidence and hardware (including digital storage devices) were seized from the operator's home.
Ultimately, BREIN agreed to resolve its differences with the operator out of court.
"After consulting with his lawyer, the man decided to settle the case through an agreement," reports BREIN.
โHe has signed a declaration of abstention with a penalty clause in case of future infractions of 2,500 euros per day (or part of them) with a maximum of 50,000 euros. It also allowed access to seized digital documents. Finally, he paid 20,000 euros in final settlement โ.
While the penalties for non-compliance are harsh and the โฌ 20,000 deal is not insignificant, if this had taken place in other parts of Europe a few years ago, the outcome could have been very different.
DJ in the UK jailed for operating a similar resource
In 2015 Liverpool DJ Wayne Evans (known online as OldSkoolScouse) was assaulted by the Police Intellectual Property Crimes Unit following an investigation carried out by the PRS for Music licensing team. Evans had uploaded music to torrent sites like The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents, but he also ran DeeJayPortal, a download site that specializes in acapella versions of music tracks.
"We are committed to partnering with PIPCU to enforce illegal services who are unwilling to work with us towards a legitimate licensed model and who continue to exploit the work of our members without permission," PRS said at the time.
After pleading guilty in October 2016, Evans was later sentenced on two counts of distributing an article that infringes copyright and one of possession or control of an article for use in fraud. Fraud generally carries a harsher sentence in the UK and copyright holders favor prosecutions under this legislation.
Police originally claimed that Evans was making substantial amounts of money from his business, but in his sentencing, Judge Robert Trevor-Jones accepted that Evans was not motivated by personal gain. This is in contrast to the BREIN case, where profits were clearly the determining factor. However, Evans was sentenced to 12 months in prison, despite having no prior convictions.
The results depend on the mood of the rights holders
While the alleged scale of crime certainly plays a key role, the results in these two cases raise interesting questions. BREIN was obviously willing to shut down the DJ service without a license, something he accomplished without the involvement of the police and at the same time won a deal. News of the result also sends a dissuasive message, as few people have โฌ 20,000 to pay rights holders.
PRS, on the other hand, clearly wanted to send a stronger deterrent message, so instead of a cease and desist, it made the decision to go for the jugular, which resulted in the closure of the service but also a prison sentence. for Evans. It is unclear what BREIN would have done if his crime had been in the Netherlands, but the cases so far suggest that a particular outcome would have been unlikely.
Evans, it seemed, was doing the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong place with the wrong opponent. If I had been elsewhere in Europe at the time, things could have gone very differently.
The main message is that in today's environment, the UK hacking service operation is more likely to attract the attention of the police than ever before. And when rights holders want to send a public message of deterrence, the results can be dire.
