Netherlands tells ISPs to unblock The Pirate Bay

30 Jan 2014

1

An appeals court in the Netherlands has ruled that internet providers can no longer block IP addresses associated with The Pirate Bay. The court passed the order since the blockade was apparently impossible to enforce with users finding new ways to access the site.

According to the Associated Press, the court ruled that the blockade imposed a violation of the basic right to freedom of commercial activity of the providers with insufficient justification.

It was of great significance that the providers themselves were not violating copyrights.

The Pirate Bay is infamous for allegedly abetting the piracy of copyrighted material -- and court battles over bans of the site had been ongoing in several countries for years. The Netherlands was one of the first countries to block the site.

The case was brought by anti-piracy foundation BREIN in 2011. It asked the court to order several ISPs to block customers from accessing the file-sharing site.

A Dutch court in 2012, ruled in favour of BREIN and ordered ISPs to block the site. Under the terms of the ruling, the ISPs were asked to pay fines up to €10,000 for every day The Pirate Bay was accessible to customers.

A handful of the ISPs remained opposed to the ruling as they did not want to act as internet censors, they said.

According to the Hague Appeals Court, it reversed the decision on the basis it had proved "ineffective" at reducing copyright infringement.

Anti-piracy group BREIN would now have to pay ISPs €400,000 in legal costs.

BREIN said, it might lodge a further appeal with the country's Supreme Court.

According to one UK-based ISP, it was studying the ruling to see if there were any implications for a similar block imposed by the High Court.

Gareth Mead, head of media relations at Virgin Media said, it would look carefully at what this meant for the UK, but the company remained beholden to the UK courts.

The ruling comes as a victory for Ziggo and XS4All - two local ISPs who had argued that the measure denied their subscribers free access to information.

Though the Pirate Bay does not host copyright-infringing content itself, it provides lists of links - many leading to pirated films, TV shows, music and books.

XS4All website XS4All had already unblocked its subscribers' access to the Pirate Bay.

At the first instance, BREIN had tried to force The Pirate Bay itself to remove such links, but having failed to do so, it had convinced the Dutch courts to block users' access instead.

But the appeals court heard that web users were circumventing the ban by either finding alternative ways to access the site - such as using a VPN (virtual private network) to mask their location - or by using other file-sharing services.

Business History Videos

History of hovercraft Part 3...

Today I shall talk a bit more about the military plans for ...

By Kiron Kasbekar | Presenter: Kiron Kasbekar

History of hovercraft Part 2...

In this episode of our history of hovercraft, we shall exam...

By Kiron Kasbekar | Presenter: Kiron Kasbekar

History of Hovercraft Part 1...

If you’ve been a James Bond movie fan, you may recall seein...

By Kiron Kasbekar | Presenter: Kiron Kasbekar

History of Trams in India | ...

The video I am presenting to you is based on a script writt...

By Aniket Gupta | Presenter: Sheetal Gaikwad

view more