Post from: TorrentFreak

Danish ISPs to Fight the Pirate Bay Block

In a court case initiated by the IFPI, a Danish judge ruled last year that Tele2 had to block its users from accessing The Pirate Bay. IFPI argued that Tele2 was assisting in mass copyright infringement, and that access to the site therefore had to be blocked.

At the time, The Pirate Bay co-founder Brokep told TorrentFreak: ‘I hope the torrent community understands what this will do to Danish people. It will also act as a very bad precedent for the European Union, and I hope everybody will fight this.’

Unfortunately for the many Danish Pirate Bay users, it got even worse. Last month TDC, Denmark’s largest ISP and owner of most of the cables, decided to block access to The Pirate Bay as a preventive measure. And now, a Danish court has ruled that all ISPs will have to do the same, or else they will face a hefty fine.

The ISPs, however, are not planning to accept the court order without a fight. TDC, Telia and Telenor have announced that they are going to appeal the decision, and they will take the case to the Supreme Court. One of their arguments is that they are not responsible for the potential copyright infringement of their subscribers.

‘Accessing The Pirate Bay is not in itself a violation of copyright,’ Jens Ottosen of Telia told dn.se. ‘We make access possible for our subscribers, and they have to decide if it is illegal. It is not our task. If so, we also contribute to illegalities on YouTube, Myspace and Google. It is completely cluttered,’ said Ottosen, who is also Chairman of the Danish telecom industry.

Indeed, this case is about more than just The Pirate Bay, it is about censoring the Internet. Will YouTube with all its copyright infringing content be next on the list? Despite the argument whether it is fair to block a BitTorrent site or not, it is completely ineffective. It is fairly easy to circumvent, and all the publicity will only drive the traffic figures up.