Bierdopje notice and take down *translated to English*

*relevant links*
Brein: http://www.anti-piracy.nl/english.php
Bierdopje: http://www.bierdopje.com/ (Dutch)
Original news: http://www.bierdopje.com/forum/mededelingenforum/topic/16444-Bierdopje-com-stopt-per-direct-met-ondertiteling/1 (Dutch)

---

Recently copyright law has been changed, and the BREIN foundation would like to cash in on this by writing serveral subtitle websites, among which Bierdopje (bottlecap ed.).

They demand we immediatly stop with illigitimate and infringing activites, and sign a statement never to do this again. Other than that there must also be transfered a "restitution" of the by BREIN made costs to close this case "on friendly terms". If we do not comply, they threaten a court case.

You guessed it, we cannot compete with this judicial fearmongering by this party with grandiosity issues and overpaid lawyers. In particular with the deadlines that they have set us. We simply do not have the financial means, nor the time and energy to jump into such issues.
This site has always been a hobby of ours, and we have no appatite for judicial procedures nor the financial means to compete. Espcially in the set timeframe. It’s incredibly sad that the BREIN foundation and her “stakeholders” would cast such bad light on community based subtitles. We have never in the history of the website ever received a Notice & Takedown request from said stakeholders, nor any insight into which interests or copyrights were infringed.
We never hurt anyone with this, nor did we damage the revenue of producers. We did this to help people who aren’t as prophicient in the English language and those who have bad or no hearing. Many of our users are not Dutch in the first place.

So what now?
Other than paying up the required amount (blackmail is implied ed.), we have the choice of either:
1.	Stop completely, taking down the website
2.	Remove all references and links to subtitles, and subtitle related topics including the subforum and work in progress projects, and continue as purely a TV community.
We have chosen to go for the second option but this has a number of concequences.
1.	Removal of all subtitle related content, including but not limited to WIP, thank you notes, statistics etc.
2.	Translator and syncer-status will be removed.
3.	All subtitle related functions and references in the API are no longer available. Series information is still available.
4.	All subtitle related functions and references in the external feed are removed.
5.	The Subtitle RSS feed has been removed
6.	The Translator subforum is closed
7.	Translation, translator and subtitle related IRC channels have been closed
8.	The distribution, linking or referencing - be it of a file, filesharingsite or any other source- of subtitles is no longer allowed and shall be strictly enforced.

API & RSS
The developers and users of the RSS feeds and API (specifically those that search subtitles) we would request you modify your applications such that they no longer request functions that no longer exist.  API keys can be deactivated by request on the “Lieve Adjes” forum.
Development Bierdopje v3
This has no impact on the development of Bierdopje v3. As of yet we still continueing the development of new functions in the area of TV shows and the indexing of episodes. We are planning on bringing the focus to (Dutch) news on your favorite series and actors. All the great ideas we had for subtitles, WIP, translation groups and API’s will sadly be canceled.

In Closing
We are very sad that it has come to a point where a private party like the BREIN foundation can kill our hobby projects in such a manner. Furthermore we understand that this is quite a blow to our users and translators, and it will generate quite some frustration but unfortunately there is nothing we can do. Of course you are welcome to voice your opinion but we implore you to do so in a mature way and not fall to simple cursing, even though that may be well deserved.
Naturally, everybody is welcome to stay on our website to talk about tv shows, episodes, actors and to keep your index of shows and episodes complete. Although this is a very demotivating blow to us, we are going to try and stay positive, and hopefully you will stay with us in the future.