The Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN is going after two anonymous Usenet uploaders, who shared more than 2,000 books in total.

The group requested the personal details of the users from their providers, but they refused to hand them over citing privacy concerns. As a result, BREIN is now taking the matter to court.

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has targeted the operators of pirate sites for more than a decade, but more recently it began going after uploaders as well.

Over the past several months the group has tracked down several prolific uploaders and has now announced intentions to take these efforts a step further.

While many efforts have focused on BitTorrent uploaders, BREIN is also keeping a close eye on other sharing platforms. This includes Usenet, which despite staying out of the piracy headlines, remains relatively popular.

Representing several large book publishers, the anti-piracy group is going after two anonymous Usenet users, who allegedly uploaded more than 2,000 books to newsgroups.

BREIN has already contacted their Usenet providers, Eweka and Usenetter, who in response cancelled the accounts in question.

However, they refused to hand over any personal details. According to the providers, they are no longer allowed to share personal data under the e-Privacy regulation if an account is disconnected.

BREIN contests this and is now taking the matter to court. According to the group this case isn’t about regular data retention policies, instead, it’s a unique situation where the enforcement rights of the publishers should outweigh privacy concerns.

A local court will now review both positions. The court has already stated that it will review the circumstances under which BREIN requested the data, when the users’ accounts were still active.

If BREIN succeeds then the group has an extra tool in their arsenal, making it easier to expose prolific uploaders. This could also spell trouble for BitTorrent uploaders, as BREIN could try to request personal information from their ISPs.

TorrentFreak asked BREIN for a comment on their plans for the information, but at the time of publishing we haven’t heard back.

This isn’t the first time BREIN has gone after serial e-book infringers.

Last year, a Dutch court ordered Google to hand over the personal details of a user that sold pirated books in the Play Store. In that case the court concluded that the rights of copyright holders outweigh the user’s rights.



source TorrentFreak.com