Another BitTorrent Site Faces Legal Action

As The Pirate Bay fights to stay online, one of its chief rivals has also fallen into the sights of the authorities.

A civil court ordered Dutch Website Mininova to remove all files on its servers that point to copyrighted works within three months or face fines. Mininova rivals The Pirate Bay as an Internet BitTorrent indexing and tracking site, and like its competitor has been at the center of controversy over the distribution of copyrighted material.

Following a separate court order, ISP Black Internet cut service to The Pirate Bay Aug. 24 in the face of possible fines. However, two days later The Pirate Bay found its way back online. Despite the controversy, the operators of The Pirate Bay say they are not backing down.

“Even though large parts of Internets and many old and famous trackers have fallen or may fall into the grip of the IFPI and all the odious apparatus of MPAA rule, we shall not flag or fail,” said a The Pirate Bay blog post.

In its ruling, the Utrecht District Court took the side of Stichting BREIN, a Dutch organisation representing various copyright-holder groups. The court accused Mininova of both promoting the violation of copyrights and profiting from said activity due to advertising on the site.

In a statement, Mininova founder Erik Dubbelboer said he was disappointed in the court’s decision.

“We are obviously not satisfied with this ruling,” Dubbelboer said. “The result of this ruling for Mininova is that we have to reevaluate our business operations. At this time, we cannot determine what this will actually entail or imply. We will have to examine the verdict thoroughly first. We are considering [whether] to appeal this judgment.”