Annual report 2024
I n t r o d u c t i o n
The BREIN Foundation provides collective protection of copyright and related rights for creators, performing artists and the creative media industry such as producers, publishers, broadcasters, distributors and platforms. Associated with BREIN are around thirty industry and collective management organizations and their members, together thousands of creators and companies related to music, films, series, books, writings, images and games.
The year 2024 was an eventful one for the BREIN Foundation. The trusted face of the foundation, Tim Kuik, retired. With this, Tim closed one chapter and the new director Bastiaan van Ramshorst opened a new one, supported by the new head of legal affairs Birre Büller and the rest of the team. As a token of gratitude Tim, in the presence of family, (former) colleagues, (former) directors, BREIN affiliates and other interested parties was honored with two awards: the Bronze Crocus of the Lange Voorhout, presented by VOI©E and the Stichting Federatie Auteursrechtbelangen, and the appointment as Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been gaining traction among BREIN’s affiliates. BREIN conducted extensive investigations into infringing datasets on which Generative AI models are trained and into unlawful AI models and was able to successfully complete the first AI investigations. BREIN seizes opportunities for enforcement against unlawful and infringing use of AI and does so for the benefit of all member industries.
Apart from AI-related infringements and the increase in illegal vinyl, music piracy stabilized. Video and books related piracy increased. The biggest threat to audio-visual affiliates is in illegal IPTV. The renewed interest by criminal justice authorities to address IPTV-related infringements criminally as well, is good news for all copyright holders. The threat of criminal enforcement of copyright and related rights has precedent and impact on potential infringers and how copyright infringement is generally viewed.
N u m b e r s
BREIN performed the following numbers of enforcement actions in 2024. All actions cover music, video (films and series), books, writings, images and games, unless otherwise stated.
• 339 files completed
• 179 investigations completed
• 155 illegal sites/services/platforms stopped
• 11 platforms, 9 IP addresses and 525 unique domains dynamically blocked at DNS level
• 525 illegal websites completely removed from search results by Google
• 160 proxies/mirrors stopped
• 46 illegal traders IPTV/VOD subscriptions stopped
• 14 IPTV ads removed by Google
• 47 streaming sites taken offline
• 3 major uploaders, administrators and/or scripters investigated and stopped
• 166,945 Google search results removed
• 3,677 interventions involving removal of online ads for illegal copies
• 40 settlements, including 7 ‘knock & talks’
• 3 judicial ex parte orders obtained
• 10 online cases involving physical media were handled
• 14 checks conducted at record fairs
• 16 .nl and 7 .eu domain names taken offline