The Pirate Bay is arguably the most widely blocked website on the Internet.
ISPs from all over the world have been ordered by courts to prevent users from accessing the torrent site, and this week the list has grown a bit longer.
A Dutch court has ruled that local Internet providers KPN, Tele2, T-Mobile, Zeelandnet and CAIW must block the site within ten days. The verdict follows a similar decision from September last year, where Ziggo and XS4All were ordered to do the same.
The blockade applies to several IP addresses and more than 150 domain names that are used by the notorious torrent site. Several of the ISPs had warned the court about the dangers of overblocking, but these concerns were rejected.
While most Dutch customers will be unable to access The Pirate Bay directly, the decision is not final yet. Not until the Supreme Court issues its pending decision. That will be the climax of a legal battle that started eight years ago.
A Dutch court first issued an order to block The Pirate Bay in 2012, but this decision was overturned two years later. Anti-piracy group BREIN then took the matter to the Supreme Court, which subsequently referred the case to the EU Court of Justice, seeking further clarification.
After a careful review of the case, the EU Court of Justice decided last year that The Pirate Bay can indeed be blocked.
The top EU court ruled that although The Pirate Bay’s operators don’t share anything themselves, they knowingly provide users with a platform to share copyright-infringing links. This can be seen as “an act of communication” under the EU Copyright Directive.
This put the case back to the Dutch Supreme court, which has yet to decide on the matter.
BREIN, however, wanted a blocking decision more quickly and requested preliminary injunctions, like the one issued this week. These injunctions will only be valid until the final verdict is handed down.
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A copy of the most recent court order is available here (pdf).
