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Dutch industry turns its anti-piracy efforts to Facebook groups

By | Published on Thursday 3 November 2016

BREIN

Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN says that it has successfully forced nine Facebook groups offline on the basis they existed to provide users with links to unlicensed sources of music content. And that’s not really what music people have in mind when they continue to waffle on about Facebook’s possible role as a future music service.

It’s not the first time the entertainment industry has pressured Facebook to close down groups on copyright grounds, but comes as part of BREIN’s newly proactive efforts to crack down on good old fashioned file-sharing.

As previously reported, BREIN has started pursuing legal action again against individuals who prolifically upload music without licence, usually by securing ex-parte court orders that mean a suspected file-sharer would face regular significant fines if they do not commit to stop infringing copyright with immediate effect.

One of the file-sharers targeted by BREIN in this way did his file-sharing via a Facebook group, by posting links to music files stored in digital lockers. That particular group was shut down at the same time as the targeted file-sharer committing to stop infringing, but BREIN has now confirmed to Torrentfreak that it got another nine groups closed.

The anti-piracy group stated that: “Links to infringing files hosted on cloud services were indexed on the pages. Knowingly posting links to infringing files is itself a violation”.

Of course, those posting or accessing illegal content via the now closed Facebook groups – while inconvenienced – will likely find a new place to post and click on links. Though the ever proactive BREIN will no doubt look out for those new places too – while also threatening to go after any individuals who can be shown to be actually uploading the files linked to – the message basically being “why can’t you all just use bloody Spotify?”



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