In keeping with a global strategy to disrupt the operations of unauthorized file-sharing sites by attacking their infrastructure, Swedish authorities have been eying two domains operated by the notorious Pirate Bay.
In 2013, Prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad, the man behind the operation that took the site down in December, filed a motion targeting ThePirateBay.se (the site’s main domain) and PirateBay.se (a lesser used alternative).
Filed against Punkt SE, the organization responsible for Sweden’s top level .SE domain, the case reasoned that since The Pirate Bay is an illegal operation, its domains are tools used by the site to infringe copyright. Noting that Punkt SE supplies and controls the domains and is therefore liable for their (mis)use, the domains should be dealt with in the same way that other criminal tools would be, Ingblad argued.
Punkt SE, on the other hand, took the position that holding a registry responsible for infringement has no basis in law. Furthermore, disabling domains is an ineffective way to deal with infringement.
After two years preparation the case was heard at the end of April 2015 and just a few minutes ago the decision was handed down.
After a week-long delay the Stockholm District Court ruled that The Pirate Bay will forfeit its Sweden-based domains – ThePirateBay.se and PirateBay.se – after finding that they belong to Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij.
“The District Court’s conclusion is that the domain names are property that can be forfeited,” the ruling reads.
“Fredrik Neij has participated in the [copyright infringement] crimes that have been identified and he is the actual holder of the domain names. It is therefore no obstacle to confiscate domain names from him. The prosecutor’s primary claim with respect to Fredrik Neij should be upheld and domain names should be confiscated from him in accordance with the Copyright Act.”
While copyright holders will be pleased that two of Pirate Bay’s domains will be put out of action (they will be seized by the Swedish state), the District Court dismissed the prosecution’s case against Punkt.se and awarded the registry close to $40,000 (SEK 332,000) in costs.
“We have received the verdict and are of course glad that the court chose to decide according to our view,” .SE public relations manager Elisabeth Nilsson informs TorrentFreak.
“We think it is good that this issue has been examined. Now we need some time to read through the verdict and do a thorough analysis before we can make any further comments.”
At least for now The Pirate Bay will continue business as usual. An insider informs TF that the site has plenty of other domains in reserve and will make a switch when required.
We have also requested comment from prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad and this article will be updated as soon as further details become available.
Should the parties wish to appeal they must do so no later than June 9, 2015.
Tag: Sweden
European Commission Discovers The Hard Way That Corporate Sovereignty Provisions And EU Laws Are Incompatible
The US government and European Commission insist that the inclusion of a corporate sovereignty chapter in the TAFTA/TTIP treaty will not in any way diminish the ability of nations to pass laws as they wish. A fascinating case involving an investment in Romania shows why that’s just not true. It concerns a state aid scheme instituted by Romania to attract investments in the country, which offered tax breaks or refunds of customs duties on raw materials. The scheme was supposed to remain in place for 10 years. But as part of Romania’s accession to the EU, it was required to cancel this scheme, which was regarded by the European Commission as providing unfair state aid. So, obediently, Romania abolished the scheme in 2005, some years earlier than it had promised.
That didn’t go down too well with investors. Two of them were able to use the investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) clauses of a bilateral treaty between Sweden and Romania to sue the latter. Here’s what happened next, as described in the European Commission’s press release:
An arbitral award of December 2013 found that by revoking an investment incentive scheme in 2005, four years prior to its scheduled expiry in 2009, Romania had infringed a bilateral investment treaty between Romania and Sweden. The arbitral tribunal ordered Romania to compensate the claimants, two investors with Swedish citizenship, for not having benefitted in full from the scheme.
Just part of the price of joining the European Union, you might think. But the European Commission is unhappy that compensation has been paid:
By paying the compensation awarded to the claimants, Romania actually grants them advantages equivalent to those provided for by the abolished aid scheme. The Commission has therefore concluded that this compensation amounts to incompatible state aid and has to be paid back by the beneficiaries.
That is, both the original state aid and the subsequent compensation for not providing that aid for the full term of the agreement are regarded as forbidden under EU law. So the European Commission is ordering Romania somehow to pull back from the Swedish investors the compensation awarded by the ISDS tribunal. Leaving aside the difficulty of doing so, even if Romania manages that, it will then be in breach of the corporate sovereignty tribunal ruling, which could leave it open to further legal action, and further awards against it. On the other hand, if it doesn’t rescind the compensation, it will be fined by the European Commission.
This provides a perfect demonstration of how corporate sovereignty provisions in treaties take away the ability of national governments to act freely. Moreover, in this particular case, whatever Romania chooses to do, its people will suffer financially.
Entertainment Industry Demands Swedish ISP Block The Pirate Bay; ISP Says No
There has been an increasing push by the legacy entertainment industry to get “full site blocking,” in which companies can declare sites they don’t like as “rogue” and order ISPs to block all access to them. This was the whole point of SOPA. And while that law failed in the US, the entertainment industry is still interested in figuring out other paths to making it happen. Courts in many other countries have been much more receptive to this form of censorship — and have regularly ordered ISPs to block sites. This is true in Sweden as well, but it appears that one ISP, Bredbandsbolaget, is going to fight back for as long as it can, according to Torrentfreak:
“It is an important principle that Internet providers of Internet infrastructure shall not be held responsible for the content that is transported over the Internet. In the same way that the Post should not meddle in what people write in the letter or where people send letters,” Commercial Director Mats Lundquist says.
“We stick to our starting point that our customers have the right to freely communicate and share information over the internet.”
Of course, this means that they’ll be going to court later this year. Torrentfreak notes that the MPAA is pulling the strings behind this, of course:
Internal movie industry documents obtained by TorrentFreak reveal that IFPI and the Swedish film producers have signed a binding agreement which compels them to conduct and finance the case. However, the MPAA is exerting its influence while providing its own evidence and know-how behind the scenes.
Also of interest is that IFPI took a decision to sue Bredbandsbolaget and not Teliasonera (described by the MPAA as “the largest and also very actively ‘copy-left’ Swedish ISP”). The reason for that was that IFPI’s counsel represents Teliasonera in other matters which would have raised a conflict of interest.
Meanwhile, we’re still left wondering how any of this encourages people to actually spend more money to support content creators.
ISP Categorically Refuses to Block Pirate Bay – Trial Set For October
Despite its current difficulties in maintaining an efficient online presence, The Pirate Bay remains the world’s most hounded website. Entertainment industry companies around the globe have made the notorious site their number one anti-piracy target and legal action continues in many regions.
Perhaps one of the most interesting at the moment is the action filed last November by Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Nordisk Film and the Swedish Film Industry. It targets Swedish ISP Bredbandsbolaget (The Broadband Company) and effectively accuses the provider of being part of the Pirate Bay’s piracy machine.
The papers filed at the Stockholm District Court demand that Bredbandsbolaget block its subscribers from accessing The Pirate Bay and popular streaming portal Swefilmer. In December the ISP gave its response, stating in very clear terms that ISPs cannot be held responsible for the traffic carried on their networks.
Last month on February 20 the parties met in the Stockholm District Court to see if some kind of agreement or settlement could be reached. But the entertainment companies’ hopes have been dashed following the confirmation that Bredbandsbolaget will not comply with its wishes.
“It is an important principle that Internet providers of Internet infrastructure shall not be held responsible for the content that is transported over the Internet. In the same way that the Post should not meddle in what people write in the letter or where people send letters,” Commercial Director Mats Lundquist says.
Avicii and Other DJs Produce Hits Using Pirated Software
Tim Bergling, aka Avicii, has become one of the world’s best known DJs, scoring hit after hit in recent years.
With a net worth estimated at $60 million the Swede has plenty of cash to splash. Enough to buy an expensive Hollywood Hills mansion.
Interestingly, however, some of the tracks he made his millions with were produced with the help of pirated software.
In an interview with Future Music Magazine Avicii proudly shows his setup and the associated video reveals that he’s using a cracked version of Lennar Digital’s popular Sylenth1 plugin, which normally costs €139.
The plugin, which appears 42 minutes into the video, is registered to “Team VTX 2011,” referencing the name of a well-known cracking group.
The interview with Avicii was shot a while ago so there’s a chance that the DJ bought a legal copy in the meantime. However, the use of pirated Sylenth1 plugins among top DJs is not an isolated incident.
Just a few months ago DJ Deadmau5 called out Martin Garrix on Twitter for making the same mistake. Garrix, who’s also a multi-millionaire, was using a version cracked by “Team AIR.”
Peter Sunde: Pirate Bay Still Has The Right To Defend Itself
The .SE registry targeted in the prosecutor’s case does not want to take this action. They look at it as removing a street address on the basis that a crime was committed there.
But they’re all making it so simple. The fact is that, even though I despise the current version of The Pirate Bay, nothing illegal happens there. And actually, no such case has even been tried as the case against me and the others a few years back was about a totally different version of TPB.
The technology back then was different and the verdicts handed down referenced the fact that three separate parts of the system were in play in order to breach copyright. First the search engine (which is still there), then a tracking system (which was removed many years ago) and a database of .torrent files (which was removed years ago too).
This means that TPB today is in a totally different technical state than it was in the previous (and also very corrupt) court case. It also means that there’s no relevant court case to reference today, the system just looks the same to the users – and the prosecution and judges might have a hard time to understand that.
Essentially today’s TPB is similar to any other search engine. The court case in Sweden could just as well talk about Google.se as a domain name instead, since they also link to material that might breach copyright. But, actually, Google show you parts of that content, not just metadata about it.
Obviously this would be considered a ludicrous case and would be thrown out, but everything regarding TPB scared the shit out of the Swedish government because of pressure from the United States of America. Just look at how the first raid happened.
The Pirate Bay Domains Targeted in Legal Action
While it is technically possible to operate without one, domain names are considered vital for any mainstream website. Domains give a web service an identity and make them easy to find.
This is exactly what authorities in Sweden are now trying to deny The Pirate Bay.
Prosecutor Fredrik Ingblad, the man behind the now-famous operation to take the site down in December, is now spearheading the drive to shut down The Pirate Bay’s access to a pair of key domains. ThePirateBay.se and PirateBay.se are Ingblad’s targets, the former being the only domain currently being used by the site.
Originally filed at the District Court of Stockholm back in 2013, the motion targets Punkt SE, the organization responsible for Sweden’s top level .SE domain. Ingblad’s assertion is that since The Pirate Bay is acting illegally, domain names are necessarily part of that site’s ‘crimes’ and should be tackled like any other part of its infrastructure.
“A domain name is an aid for a site. When a site is used for criminal activities a domain is aiding crime,” Ingblad said.
While actions against domain names aren’t unprecedented in Sweden, this case is unique. Punkt SE (also referred to as the Internet Infrastructure Foundation) informs TorrentFreak that while two earlier actions targeted the owners of Swedish domain names, this is the first time that the prosecutor has targeted the .SE / IIS registrar directly.