[Katsunami]

I've read it. When Dutch parliament catches wind of this, I'm sure (hope) all hell breaks loose, as indeed, BREIN is trying to circumvent the normal judicial system, to be able to acquire personal information at their whim.

In The Netherlands, a contract, EULA, or any other agreement, can *never* supersede the law. For example, I write a short story of one page, and you buy it. To get it, you have to sign a contract with your name and address, and I use that to watermark the story. That'd be fine.

However, the contract says: "If the author of this story ever finds it online, he is allowed to seek out the purchaser and then kill him (or her)."

The Dutch law prohibits me from killing you, and this contract therefore does not give me the right to do so. The law invalidates the contract, or at least, that particular clause.

Similarly, the Dutch law prohibits the exchange of personal information without going through a judge, so the law should invalidate (at least) that clause in the contract.

The contract basically says: "You are required to save this information and provide it to BREIN on request, or we won't sell you any watermarked books anymore." (And it seems, most books are now watermarked, or are going to be.) By doing this, BREIN has struck a deal that causes the distributor to set up a contract that blackmails the vendors into giving up personal data. At least, that is my opinion; I'm not a lawyer.

Both blackmailing and giving up personal data are prohibited by law, so I have a feeling that this contract will be invalidated somewhere down the line.

This is becoming very bad. If BREIN want to start prosecuting someone, or even just warn them that they are doing illegal stuff (or might be doing so), then they should go through the judicial system just like anyone else.

BREIN is just a private foundation. In the last few years, they are trying to get away with increasingly weird stuff. It seems as if BREIN is actually trying to set itself up as prosecutor, judge, and maybe even executioner. IMHO, the Dutch parliament should take a long hard look at this foundation.