The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), with the cooperation of Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN, has quietly shuttered 12 torrent websites in the U.S. and at least 39 sites abroad by filing copyright violation complaints with the sites' hosting providers.

The names of the sites themselves remain unknown; so far, however, the major players seem to be unaffected.

The specific URLs are not being released because frequently the affected sites will spring up elsewhere online under a different TLD (e.g., TorrentMovies.com becomes TorrentMovies.info). Releasing the names of the sites would make it much easier for users to find their new URLs in the future.

This news, while interesting and concerning, is a far cry from the 70-plus sites shut down by the Department of Homeland Security last November, the culmination of a brewing crackdown effort.

Some torrent and file-sharing sites, including RapidShare, have even taken to hiring lobbyists of their own. A company spokesperson told Mashable recently, "Given the fact that the U.S. government is currently undertaking great efforts to fight copyright infringements on the Internet, our having a voice in Washington could be beneficial for us as well as for the U.S. government."

According to TorrentFreak, BREIN "has (temporarily) disabled more than 1,000 torrent sites in The Netherlands, and they are now helping the MPAA towards doing the same in the U.S."

In a BREIN release, the organization stated that it helped the MPAA take down around 29 sites last year; and earlier this month, it shut down 39 sites in the Netherlands for the MPAA, as well.

BREIN also conducts these anti-piracy "stings" in 11 other countries, including Germany, France, Britain and Canada. Its director, Tim Kuik, said in the statement (via Google Translate), "There will be new sites, but we take them down fast so they cannot grow."