Swedish court orders ISP to shut down The Pirate Bay

By Greg Sandoval on 25 August 2009, 9:54am

A Swedish district court has ordered an Internet service provider there to stop servicing The Pirate Bay.

The most popular BitTorrent tracker in the world appeared to be inaccessible in the UK on Tuesday morning, but the blog TorrentFreak reported that the site had found a new connection to the Web and there were reports from readers saying they were able to log on to the site. Citing a source close to The Pirate Bay, TorrentFreak said that the tracker was still down but would be back up on Tuesday.

An executive with Black Internet told Swedish newspaper SvD that the court informed the company that it would either shut off The Pirate Bay or face penalties. The site's founders were found guilty of copyright violations last April.

The executive told the newspaper that Black Internet is not the only ISP servicing The Pirate Bay, but is probably the largest. He said none of the other ISPs were affected by the decision. He added that the company is considering options.

It's unclear how long Black Internet will be forced to stop service for The Pirate Bay. The company may not be able to resume service until the appeal filed by The Pirate Bay founders is settled, SvD reported.

The news comes on the heels of a victory for the founders of The Pirate Bay.

Sweden's government run debt-collection agency, commonly referred to as the bailiff, said it could find no attachable assets belonging to three of the four founders of the site. A group of media companies had asked the bailiff to collect the £2.4m a court had awarded them after finding the four Pirate Bay founders guilty of copyright violations.

At this point, the future of the site, at least in name, appears to rest with the software maker Global Gaming Factory X, the software maker and operator of Internet cafes. The company said in June it would pay £4.6m to acquire The Pirate Bay and the deal is supposed to close on Thursday. But Swedish regulators halted trading in Global Gaming on Friday over questions about the company's financial readiness to complete the transaction.

At the very least, the launch of a new Pirate Bay, one with authorised film and music copies, is unlikely to happen anytime soon.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry issued a statement applauding the decision by the court and Black Internet.

"The Court's ruling yet again confirms the illegality of The Pirate Bay's operation and demonstrates the liability of ISPs that provide internet services to The Pirate Bay," the IFPI wrote. "The Pirate Bay seeks to continue to infringe our members' rights on a commercial scale and further actions against ISPs who enable access to The Pirate Bay are planned."