The Pirate Bay is without doubt the most censored website on the Internet.
Countries all around the world have ordered Internet providers to block subscriber access to the torrent site, with Europe being at the forefront.
This week copyright holders and ISPs went to court in Sweden, as part of a prolonged legal battle to have the site blocked on its home turf.
Two years ago Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Nordisk Film and the Swedish Film Industry filed a lawsuit to force Swedish ISP Bredbandsbolaget to block access to The Pirate Bay and Swefilmer.
The rightsholders argued that the ISP is liable for the copyright infringements of its customers if it fails to implement a blockade. However, the Stockholm District Court disagreed and sided with the Internet provider in its ruling late last year.
Now, both parties have argued their case before the Appeals Court. A final decision will be issued at a later date, but Bredbandsbolaget and fellow ISP Telenor warn that a blocking requirement will have serious implications.
“It is a dangerous path to go down, which forces Internet providers to monitor and evaluate content on the Internet and block websites with illegal content in order to avoid becoming accomplices,” the companies write in a joint statement.
Copyright holders have pointed out that similar orders were issued in neighboring countries, but the ISPs stress that a mandatory block will be an unprecedented form of censorship under Swedish law.
“The copyright holders argue that the blockades they request are similar to those in neighboring Nordic countries. But with the legislation we have in Sweden, it means rightsholders’ demands require a form of censorship that has no equivalent in any other EU country.”
The ISPs hope that the Court of Appeal will come to the same conclusion as the District Court; that ISPs which merely provide access to the Internet are not complicit in crimes that are committed by their customers.
While Bredbandsbolaget and Telenor don’t expect that the case will go to the Supreme Court, they believe that the rightsholders will try to convince lawmakers to make blocking requests easier. This is not the right way to go, they say.
“We don’t think that tougher legislation and blocking requirements are an effective way to stop the illegal distribution of copyrighted works on the Internet,” the ISPs note.
Instead, they urge media companies and Internet providers to start collaborating to come to effective and mutually agreeable solutions. Thus far, they have shown little interest in doing that, the ISPs note.
“We hope that the rightholders will be more open to dialogue when this lawsuit is over,” they conclude.
