Policy Observatory

Courts all around the world have ordered Internet providers to block subscriber access to the torrent site and the list continues to expand. Last month French ISPs started blocking The Pirate Bay and last week the Intellectual Property Court in Portugal ordered a similar measure against local Internet providers.

The Guardian report that the Swedish police have raided and seized computer and server equipment in Stockholm, taking the notorious piracy site the Pirate Bay offline. The site, which has survived the arrest and jailing of its founders, several attempts to remove it from the internet and blockade by internet service providers (ISPs) in the UK and internationally, has been unavailable for more than 24 hours.

Australia will amend copyright laws to allow courts to order the blocking of overseas websites used for illegal downloads and streaming. The government has given internet service providers (ISPs) and copyright holders a four-month deadline to develop a new industry code which should canvass a “fair” sharing of the cost of notifying and educating customers about infringement.

The Pirate Bay, the Swedish site access torrents, has been locked in Spain since Friday, according to a court ruling. Internet Service Providers have 72 hours to comply. The popular service was unavailable last December after a police raid, but was revived earlier this year.

The Dutch Supreme Court referred a landmark case against the file-sharing website Pirate Bay to the European Court of Justice on Friday, a move that could lead to a precedent in efforts to curtail the sharing of copyrighted movies and music online. The Luxenbourg-based court has been asked to consider two main points: whether Pirate Bay's actions infringe European copyright laws and to what extent a court can order internet providers to block subscribers access to illegal websites.