In a case dating back to 2010, Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN went to court to try and force Ziggo, the largest ISP in the Netherlands, to implement a DNS and IP address blockade of The Pirate Bay.
To avoid a negative and potentially damaging legal precedent, Ziggo was joined in the case by rival ISP XS4ALL. After legal wrangling and initial progress, during November 2011 the case went before the Court of The Hague and in January 2012 it delivered its ruling.
While the ISPs were ordered to block access to The Pirate Bay, both immediately announced they would appeal. BREIN, on the other hand, used the momentum to announce that it would sue even more ISPs to force them to censor TPB too.
Today the Court of The Hague ruled that BREIN’s latest ISP targets – UPC, KPN, Tele2, T-Mobile and Telfort – must also block The Pirate Bay.
The blocking order is broad covering 20 specific domains including ThePirateBay.org, ThePirateBay.se, ThePirateBay.com, DePiraatBaii.be and TheMusicBay.net. BREIN also asked for a total of three IP addresses to be blocked, but the Court only granted a block against two after it decided that one of addresses carried only Pirate Bay-owned content such as website images and CSS files.
A request from BREIN to be permitted to add further IP addresses and domains to the ruling was opposed by the ISPs and ultimately denied by the Court. This means that The Pirate Bay could simply add a new domain or IP-address to circumvent the block.
And that’s not the only way the blockade can be circumvented.
In a short statement welcoming the decision, BREIN said the Court’s ruling was good “for innovation and creation.”
While it’s believed that UPC, KPN, Tele2, T-Mobile and Telfort will appeal the decision, they will still have to implement the blockage in the interim period. The ISPs have 10 days to do so or face maximum fines of 250,000 euros.
