After being sued by anti-piracy group BREIN, 3 members of a popular piracy release group have agreed to cease and desist their online activities, pay a cash settlement and provide information on other group members. A few months ago, Dutch anti-piracy group obtained ex parte court orders against members of “Dutch Release Team”. The latter specialized in making available subtitled films and TV shows. The courts ordered 3 leaders of the team to stop their infringement or face a fine of 2,000 euros per day or 2,000 euros per infringing upload.

BREIN claims that the trio not only moderated their own service, but also uploaded content to various popular torrent trackers, including The Pirate Bay and other. It now became known that the trio came to a settlement agreement with BREIN, under which they remove their torrents from torrent websites, pay a cash settlement and promise to hand over information about other group members to the anti-piracy group.

It is not clear what details have been handed over, but the industry observers admit that it’s fairly unusual for snitching to be publicly revealed. BREIN admitted that it gets information not only from those looking to get themselves out of trouble, but sometimes also from rivals in the piracy scene.

By the way, some anti-piracy groups thrive on snitching – for example, the UK’s Federation Against Software Theft runs a so-called “grass hotline” where anyone can inform on companies for using under licensed software. Usually, such snitches are ex-employees with a grudge against their former bosses.