Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has revealed that during 2021, it took down five Usenet indexing platforms and approached 38 uploaders of content for settlement. Overall, BREIN collected cash payments of $290K from pirates, with settlements presented as an alternative to protracted and expensive legal battles.

It’s one of the oldest methods for sharing large files online but despite advances in modern technology, Usenet (also knows as newsgroups) still has a considerable following among enthusiasts.

While it can be used for a multitude of other things, Usenet’s popularity and longevity have certainly been boosted by the mountains of copyrighted content that exist on the sprawling system. Over the years, finding such content has been made more simple with the assistance of indexing sites, which in broad terms operate like torrent portals, offering links to content without actually storing it.

Popular with users, these sites can also attract the attention of anti-piracy groups, Netherlands-based BREIN in particular.

The rest of this article can be read on TorrentFreak.com

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