Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2009/07/24/pirate_bay_ipredator_brien/

Pirate Bay gets shirty with Dutch anti-piracy group

Handbags at yawn

By Kelly Fiveash

Posted in Legal, 24th July 2009 14:35 GMT

The Pirate Bay is counter-suing a member of the Dutch anti-piracy group for defamation.

The BitTorrent tracker website confirmed in a blog post yesterday that it plans to file "criminal charges" and bring a defamation lawsuit against Netherlands-based Tim Kuik of Stichting BREIN.

TPB alleged that Kuik had made "blatant and outrageous claims" about the founders of the site.

"Recently, he [Kuik] has claimed in international press that The Pirate Bay operators and Peter Sunde are engaging in criminal so-called DDoS attacks against the web site of Stichting BREIN."

TPB added that such "claims" could damage the "professional reputation" of the site's media mouthpiece Peter Sunde, aka BrokeP.

"I am sure there will be no other outcome for this except that Mr Kuk will have to make an apology and also pay fines for his crimes", opined BrokeP.

BREIN's lawyer took the organisation's complaints to an Amsterdam court earlier this week where it alleged TPB was responsible for millions of copyright infringements every day, according to TorrentFreak.

It called on the court to block visitors trying to access the site from the Netherlands.

TPB's operators claimed they had received no official summons and weren't even aware that a case was underway in Amsterdam.

They also wrote to the court demanding that it dismiss the case and impose damages against BREIN, that the trio would like to see awarded to the Dutch tentacle of the Pirate Party.

“We would like the Dutch court to [...] make sure that these power hungry corporations and organisations can not abuse their power and financial muscles against private people that criticise the way these companies behave towards the public," wrote Sunde and co-founders Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij in the letter. "It is not acceptable behavior and we urge the court to put an end to their madness.”

The Register was unable to reach anyone at BREIN at time of writing, as the group's website is currently out of action. Surely not a DDoS attack, is it? And we assume this is a hoax website too... ®