Pirate Bay

The Court of The Hague has handed down another ruling that restricts access to The Pirate Bay website. The Court has forbidden the Dutch Pirate Party from linking to, operating or listing websites that allow the public to circumvent a local Pirate Bay blockade. The political party is further ordered to shutdown its reverse proxy indefinitely and block Pirate Bay domains and IP-addresses from its generic proxy.

After two Dutch ISPs were ordered to censor The Pirate Bay earlier this year there was an influx of visitors to Pirate Bay proxy sites. In an attempt to take these proxies offline the Hollywood funded anti-piracy group BREIN obtained an injunction against one of the sites and used this to convince others to shut down as well.

The list of secondary targets included the local Pirate Party, who initially refused to give in to the demands but were later ordered to take their reverse proxy offline by the court. The Pirate Party claimed that the case against them amounted to a restriction of their freedom of speech, and sued BREIN over the order.

The Court of The Hague then delivered its verdict, which confirms most of the earlier injunction. The Pirate Party is now forbidden from encouraging the public to circumvent the Pirate Bay blockade and from listing or hosting tools that can enable others to do so. Should the Pirate Party fail to comply with the Court's ruling it faces fines of EUR5,000 per day to a maximum penalty of EUR250,000.

Pirate Party chairman Dirk Poot told TorrentFreak:

For many who where hoping for the law to come to the rescue of basic civil liberties, today must be a rough awakening. This ridiculously broad verdict allows BREIN to take down any site that is posting information that displeases their censors.

A first in Dutch law is that a judge has now also ordered a generic proxy to filter internet traffic as well. BREIN has created jurisprudence that will now allow them to come after any open proxy they have set their sights on.

After its previous bandwidth provider had to take the site offline due to concerns over an aggressive Hollywood injunction, The Pirate Bay is back in operation with a surprising new supplier. In a move claimed to stand up for freedom of expression , the Swedish Pirate Party became the site's new host.

Following an injunction obtained by several major Hollywood movie studios, the previous Pirate Bay bandwidth provider CB3ROB took the decision to take the site offline while it digested the legal implications.

That meant that for several hours The Pirate Bay, for the first time in many months, was taken offline. But it soon returned via the Pirate Party.

Today, on 18 May, the Swedish Pirate Party took over the delivery of bandwidth to The Pirate Bay, says the Party's Rick Falkvinge in a statement: We got tired of Hollywood's cat and mouse game with the Pirate Bay so we decided to offer the site bandwidth. It is time to take the bull by the horns and stand up for what we believe is a legitimate activity.

The Pirate Party say they will provide bandwidth to the site's homepage and search engine. The Pirate Bay is a search engine, and as such it is not responsible for the results, notes Falkvinge.

Film Studios led by Disney, Universal and Columbia have decided that the best way to deal with the filesharing site Pirate Bay is to kill it off for good.

Under the auspices of the MPAA, they have launched a new legal action in the Swedish courts aimed at closing down the site permanently. They say that despite the three founders - Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg - having been sentenced to a year in the clink, they are nonetheless continuing their nefarious operations.

The suit also alleges that Reservella, the Seychelles-based company that The Pirate Bay founders insist owns the website, is in fact merely a front company owned by Neij. Naturally, the three former Pirate Bay principals deny this.

When Pirate Bay lost the earlier lawsuit brought by International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the entertainment companies it represents in the Swedish courts last April, the founders were also fined $3.6 million. However, Internet cafe company Global Gaming Foundry said in June it would buy Pirate Bay for $7.8 million and turn it into a legitimate operation. GGF has since had second thoughts and the MPAA has vowed to seize any money from the sale that might end up in the hands of the Pirate Bay founders.

Based on article from torrentfreak.com

The Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN has won its court case against The Pirate Bay. The Amsterdam court ruled that the site must cease all operations in The Netherlands within 10 days, or else pay penalties of 30,000 euros ($42,300) a person, per day.

BREIN's lawyer argued that The Pirate Bay is responsible for millions of copyright infringements every day, and that the site should therefore be blocked to visitors from The Netherlands.

After the announcement of torrent site The Pirate Bay being sold to Sweden's Global Gaming Factory, which are to be list on the Swedish stock market, it has been learnt that one of the mega-popular site's co-founders, Peter Sunde, has confirmed comprehensive changes, which might result in the iconic web service switching to a new business model.

The Pirate Bay is also thinking of stopping directly hosting torrents, which are used to connect file sharers with each other.

It should be noted that these announcements have come at a time when the possibility of stiff fines and jail terms to be imposed on the Pirate Bay founders looms large.

It is being predicted by many that it is a good thing for Pirate Bay to decentralize its torrent tracking service and hosting torrents across a range of third party services, since it could discourage any future attempts by the recording industry and Hollywood, to attack the BitTorrent file sharing service via legal means.

It is also being forecast that soon the Pirate Bay could become a legitimate pay-to-download service, going by an announcement from Global Gaming Factory CEO Hans Pandeya, which confirm that they would work with copyright owners to see that content providers and copyright owners get paid for content that is downloaded via the site.

The Italian government has banned the daddy of illegal torrent sites, Pirate Bay.

However it seems as if the Italian government might have to face the file sharer's underworld, as they are not happy about this.

In a letter on the Pirate Bay website, the owners are venting their anger at the court of Italian Supremo Silvio Berlusconi; they have labeled him a fascist. They also go on to say that he is part of a corrupt dictatorship that is intent on quashing the Internet’s right to remain free of censorship.

At the end of the letter, the letter explains to wannabe Italian downloader’s how to get around this block. Pirate Bay is also asking fans of their site to complain to their ISP. They say that they should demand that the site be reinstated.

Update: Pirate Appeal

25th August 2008, based on article from torrentfreak.com

The Pirate Bay has decided to fight the decision of an Italian judge after it ordered ISPs to block access to the popular tracker. The blocks didn’t prove particularly effective as traffic from Italy only increased but nevertheless, The Pirate Bay is determined to reverse the decision.

The Pirate Bay have filed an appeal against the decree that forced Italian ISPs to block the BitTorrent tracker. Pirate Bay’s lawyers Giovanni Battista Gallus and Francesco Micozzi are convinced that they have a strong case. The decree can be defined as ‘original’ or ‘creative’ at best they told TorrentFreak.

A Tribunal of three judges will now look into the appeal, and a decision is expected in a few weeks. After that, the decision of the Tribunal can be further appealed by both parties before the Higher Court.