Dutch internet piracy watchdog Brein has forced 600 piracy sites to go offline in 2011. The foundation called the blockade of The Pirate Bay site by two ISPs an important result of its work of the past few years.

In its annual report Brein states that 383 of the allegedly illegal sites were offering torrents. The other 217 included Usenet sites and forums. In addition, Brein had 60,000 ads on private trading and auction sites removed.

Last year, a court ruled that an online payment service had to hand over the data pertaining to one of its clients, which in turn allowed Brein to crack down on the owner of an illegal site.

However, Brein wants to take things one step further and is seeking a court ruling ordering online payment services to stop providing their services to clients operating illegal web sites.

Such a ruling has not yet been handed down because so far illegal sites terminated their business with the payment services when they were forced to close down.

Brein says that thanks to its efforts the hosting of illegal content is on the wane among Dutch hosting providers and the hosting of piracy sites now has moved abroad.

(gsh)

© Radio Netherlands Worldwide

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