DutchNews.nl - File-sharing site Mininova loses in court

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File-sharing site Mininova loses in court

Wednesday 26 August 2009

Dutch file-sharing website Mininova has been ordered to remove all copyright-protected material from its website within three months or face fines as high as €5m, Nos tv reports on Wednesday.

Anti piracy group Stichting Brein went to court in an effort to have thousands of files - such as films and music - removed.

Mininova, used by one million people a month in the Netherlands alone, had pledged to remove copyrighted material when alerted to its presence. But the foundation said this did not go far enough, Nos reported.

The judge said that although Mininova did not break copyright legislation itself, if did allow users to do so and ordered it to remove all suspect links within three months.

Last month Stichting Brein went to court to try to force Swedish file-sharing site The Pirate Bay to remove links to copyrighted material. It has so far refused to comply.

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Readers' comments

total BS! People will find a way to share no matter what. Mininova did not host any files, only provided a means for others to find things and included legal disclaimers. I don't personally use them anymore because I was mostly downloading TV shows from America as I'm from there and miss stuff. I now use tvfreeload.com if anyone is looking!

By Laura | August 26, 2009 12:17 PM

Hi Laura,

Thank you so much for the tip!
Cheers,

António.

By António De Castro | August 26, 2009 2:47 PM

Frankly I'm not surprised that big money corporations are bending the law and lawmakers round their little finger.
What does surprise me is how little vocal dissent there is in this matter.

How can courts call themselves balanced and fair when they fine individuals 22,000 dollars PER MP3 shared? This only makes sense if the plaintiff is also the judge AND advisor to the jury...

By Andy McKenzie | August 26, 2009 5:39 PM

Torrent sites are hosted by Google, therefor Google is supplying all the links to Mp3 & movies. Anyone going to challenge Google? - thought not!

By stevie | August 29, 2009 5:23 PM

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