Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN has been very active recently, targeting several prolific KickassTorrents and Pirate Bay uploaders.
Most recently it tracked down two members of the DMT (Dutch Movie Theater) group, who shared thousands of torrents on these popular torrent sites.
BREIN settled out of court with both men and said it took their personal circumstances into account while calculating the appropriate ‘damages’.
The final amount was not disclosed by the anti-piracy group. However, both users have now started a crowdfunding campaign to cover the costs, revealing how much they owed.
The crowdfunding campaigns were announced by a fellow KAT user, who is encouraging people to chip in. According to the campaign pages the 20-year old DisasterZany has to pay €1,750, while ipod020 owes BREIN €2,000 in total.
“Since €1,750 is an amount that I can’t really miss as a student, I want to ask you for a small contribution. Any amount is welcome and will be very very appreciated,” DisasterZany writes, sharing part of the settlement agreement.
BREIN is not pleased with crowdfunding efforts, Tweakers reports. According to BREIN chief Tim Kuik this changes the personal circumstances on which the settlement amount was based.
Kuik suggests that BREIN may take further action, but according to Dutch ICT lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet it’s unlikely that anything will change unless crowdfunding was specifically prohibited in the settlement agreement.
For BREIN it’s important send a strong message and deter others from sharing copyrighted files online. If both uploaders can easily cover their ‘fines’ through a crowdfunding campaign, this hurts their efforts.
At the time of writing both uploaders still have some ground to cover before their costs are fully paid. DisasterZany has raised €105 thus far, while ipod020’s campaign is at €485.
Update: According to the KAT blog post the crowdfunding campaigns were stopped after threats from BREIN.
“They both decided to stop their crowdfunding campaigns due to threatens from BREIN.
BREIN described the donations as “income acquired with illegal uploads” and threaten with a lawsuit if they don’t give the donations to BREIN.”
