back to article Court: Swedish ISPs can't be forced to block Sweden's Pirate Bay

ISPs in Sweden cannot be forced to block access to the Pirate Bay – the Swedish search engine used worldwide for pirating software, movies and music. The District Court of Stockholm ruled on Friday that Swedish ISP Bredbandsbolaget cannot be pressured by copyright holders into preventing subscribers from accessing the infamous …

  1. a_yank_lurker

    Hope?

    Now if the US could borrow a few Swedish jurist there might be some sanity to copyright in the future.

    1. Old Handle

      Re: Hope?

      As far as I'm aware, our country has never done this. That's not to say they aren't aggressive about it copyright, the popular tactic of seizing domain names is arguably even shadier, but I don't believe ISPs are ever ordered to block sites.

    2. TheVogon

      Re: Hope?

      http://cdn.godvine.com/uploads/2014/12/image_1418745710_jd_gv_whack_a_mole_kitten_FB.jpg

  2. frank ly

    At the moment ....

    .... thepiratebay is running on a .org.ua (Ukraine) domain as it slowly sails the seven seas (metaphorically). Anybody who's seriously interested in connecting to it will avoid any ISP blocks by using a VPN plugin for their browser or have a full VPN set up.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: At the moment ....

      I like the UK approach. Only the pleb ISPs block, while the rest are completely uncensored.

      It's a compromise that's good for everyone.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: At the moment ....

        "Only the pleb ISPs block"

        Virgin block and as the only ISP offering 200mbits at a reasonable price I wouldn't say they are just for plebs. However it's easy to just use another DNS server - and HTTPS - which so far evades all blocks.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: At the moment ....

          VM is the Big Brother in 90% of the homes up my street. The final mile is via 1990's coax so your 200Mbits is a 'pipe' dream. More like 5-8Mbits between 3pm and Midnight.

          The 'plebs' are on VM and or Sky or BT so thet they can get their fix of soaps and footie. The more enlightened of us are on other ISP's.

          You know those with UK support centres and manned by people who actually know what you are talking about...

          1. RedCardinal
            Happy

            Re: At the moment ....

            >>The 'plebs' are on VM and or Sky or BT so thet they can get their fix of soaps and footie. The more enlightened of us are on other ISP's.

            My ISP is Sky and they don't block "access" to the Piratebay at all. All they do is try and prevent you connecting to the Piratebay website by browser (and as we know, unless you're completely clueless, that block is ludicrously easy to circumvent...)

          2. TheVogon

            Re: At the moment ....

            "The final mile is via 1990's coax so your 200Mbits is a 'pipe' dream."

            Coax can EASILY give you 200mbits of downstream data. Usable RF bandwidth for cable TV is approaching 1GHz which gives you way way more than that.

            "More like 5-8Mbits between 3pm and Midnight."

            Again not true. I can pull 20 MegaBytes per second relatively constant downloads at pretty much any time. Anyone who can't is probably using ports that get traffic shaped. Try setting your P2P port to 554 and ensure that encryption is forced on.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: At the moment ....

              >> The 'plebs' are on VM and or Sky or BT so thet they can get their fix of soaps.

              I'm on VM and according to the 2 page statement blurb they send me, I downloaded over 30TB last quarter. From your lame and largely inaccurate post, i'm clearly far more knowledgeable about such matters than you.

              How do you get 200 MBit downloads at a reasonable price then? Oh - you don't. Pleb!

          3. Down not across

            Re: At the moment ....

            VM is the Big Brother in 90% of the homes up my street. The final mile is via 1990's coax so your 200Mbits is a 'pipe' dream. More like 5-8Mbits between 3pm and Midnight.

            VM's 200Mbit/s service is delivered via (I believe) EuroDOCSIS (derived from DOCSIS 3.0) which has minimum 4 channels (38Mbit/s downstream and 27 Mbit/s upstream (max, not necessarily what ISP will offer)) as opposed to the previous DOCSIS 1.0/1.1/2.0 (38Mbit/s downstream and 9 Mbit/s (1.0,1/1) or 27Mbit/s (2.0) upstream of usable bandwidth). Also DOCSIS 3.0 does not limit available channels and the COAX (whether 1990s or not...) actually is capable of rather a lot, even more so since VM (ages ago) dropped analogue cable tv.

            VM's current EuroDOCSIS already uses (obviously) multiple channels and seems to do what it says on the tin without many hiccups.

            I also seem to to recall VM trialling 10Gbit/s using DOCSIS 3.1

            You know those with UK support centres and manned by people who actually know what you are talking about...

            Yes VM's support is dreadful. Having said that generally their service just works and quite well.

          4. RedCardinal

            Re: At the moment ....

            I've never had any problems with BT as an ISP (my current provider). But then I know what I'm doing so I guess I'm not "enlightened" because I don't have any need at all to use another ISP.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: At the moment ....

      Or just use TOR to get to the magnet / torrent file. Then switch to their normal client for procurement.

      PS, El-Reg, TPB isnt used exclusively for pirating, its a fucking search engine...It just happens to search torrents, which can be illegal or perfectley legitimate. Just like ANY other fucking torrent site.

    3. RedCardinal

      Re: At the moment ....

      Or they'll just search Google* for "piratebay web proxy"

      *other search engines are available ;)

  3. chivo243 Silver badge
    Trollface

    6 Links in the article

    but none to TPB?

    1. Omgwtfbbqtime
      Facepalm

      Re: 6 Links in the article

      If you are unable to find a link to TPB on your own that bypasses any game of wackamole, then maybe El Reg is not the news organ for you. May I suggest the Daily Fail?

      1. chivo243 Silver badge
        Pint

        Re: 6 Links in the article

        Whoosh!? Sorry, I was commenting on the number links in a relatively short article. A link to TBP in the article may have increased comments regarding the experience in connecting or not connecting to TPB, I come here for the banter...

        But in reality, I um mmmm bbq arrrrruggh what time is it?

  4. Chris G

    Slime mold

    Or, the technical term; lawyers, are the people who drive those three music companies and most others.

    The three taking action here own most of the labels on the planet and thrive best when they are suing some one, what they always try to do is make someone responsible any time they are not .aking enough money. Any judge with half a bean of common sense should know that he shouldn't make ISPs responsible for what others are doing but that won't stop Big Music. They have consistently failed to come up with a functional business plan to suit the internet so they are making it somebody else's problem.

  5. PyLETS

    Sensible decision

    It's a bit like saying the people who build and mend roads aren't responsible for blocking sales of dodgy goods off the backs of white vans.

    1. GrumpyOldBloke

      Re: Sensible decision

      According to the article the district court said that it is not in a position to authorize such a ban. It's a bit like saying they are not our roads. Presumably the case lodged before a district court is just a legal formality before moving up through the countries legal system until they find a court that is in a position to authorise such a ban and then the case can proceed on its merits etc.

  6. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Those TPP type rules that allow businesses to sue govts: I wonder if they'd allow a site such as Pirate Bay to sue a govt. that imposed blocking.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No. Obviously. It would allow the copyright industry to sue govt for not blocking sites.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If

    (which is a big word, obviously) i was at that ISP, I like to think I'd play this one carefully - "Dear Music Labels, don't worry yourselves too much about this judgement, of course we'll help you stamp out criminal activities. Just provide evidence - the sort that will stand up in court - of each infringement, and then we'll block those subscribers that have been proven to be responsible, following their conviction. " ;-)

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So: Following Germany's logic: Is the US government, owner and maintainer of the interstate highway system, responsible for the hijacking of trucks driven on those highways?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      > the US government, owner

      Yes?

      > and maintainer

      Ahahahahaha!

      > of the interstate highway system

    2. John Robson Silver badge

      And any speeding tickets you get in Germany can be handed back to the government to pay...

      Shame you can't pass them back to the car manufacturer, but the government will have to do...

  9. J.G.Harston Silver badge

    So, if I phone my fellow jehadi and discuss planning an outrage, BT gets procesuted? Kewl!!

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @ Chris Williams

    "[...] says ISPs may in future face legal action for allowing their subscribers to pirate copyrighted stuff"

    Is that what the judgement says? From your description, it appears that they have argued the opposite.

  11. dan1980

    "Pirate Bay – the Swedish search engine used worldwide for pirating software, movies and music."

    I think I have said more than once that I am not one for downloading and using copyrighted content without paying. Which is part morals and part preference as I buy all such content on physical media. (With the singular exception of a piece of software I paid to upgrade to the 'pro' version.)

    BUT, saying that Pirate Bay is "used . . . for pirating software, movies and music" is perhaps a little inaccurate. Well, a lot inaccurate.

    As Pirate Bay doesn't generate the content, host the content or transfer the content, I would suggest that representing that they are "used for pirating" misrepresents their role.

    We risk falling into the nice, comfortable language that the content providers have furnished politicians and the media with - language that conveniently ignores any subtleties or even the glaring discrepancies that are always a part of such issues.

    It's especially important with this issue as many countries seem to differentiate, legally, between the acts of creating the illegal copy, uploading the illegal copy, and downloading the illegal copy. Which of course makes perfect sense as most countries also differentiate between those different actions when dealing with other situations, such as narcotics.

    Saying that the Pirate Bay is "used for pirating" almost invites one to view the Pirate Bay as the copyright equivalent of Silk Road.

    And it's not. The very important difference is that Silkroad was not just a directory, allowing people to advertise their products and allowing 'customers' to find them and deal with them directly - it was intimately involved with the transaction. Some, such as lobbyists for content providers and the politicians they have bought 'donated' to, are all too happy to ignore those subtleties in order to paint both with the same brush.

    We should be a little more cautious - and accurate.

    1. tom dial Silver badge

      I agree fully with this, but would add one additional observation: in some cases, TPB and similar services provide access to media that are otherwise unavailable. There are old TV shows, for instance, for which I would pay willingly (or hope for availability on Netflix/Amazon/Acorn etc.) but are not available legally. It would be widely beneficial, including to the copyright owners, if they made them available for download or streaming. It might be thought unreasonable by their legal departments and litigation agents, however.

  12. Amorous Cowherder
    Facepalm

    That there's the problem!

    The legal systems are so disperate and stuck in the dark ages. Germany says it's the ISP's problem for allowing it, Sweden says it's not. UK says it's both the ISP and the users. Other countries say it's the providers and/or users! What a mess!

    The internet is transnational, it doesn't care about borders or political borders. If the copyright holders want to sort this mess out to their advantage they need present an organised front in all countries and work towards a common goal. All this fragmented action does is make the legal eagles that bit richer with every ridiculous case that comes up.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    They should be blocked

    There is no God given right to access pirate websites. Aiding and abetting crims is not a requirement.

    1. Danny 14

      Re: They should be blocked

      why? what have TPB stolen?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: They should be blocked

      Copyright violation != crime

      Copyright violation == civil offence

      Only if you cause significant losses is it a crime.... I.E. Bootleg dvds, distributing in the cinema films... Things that actually do cost the studios money.

      I buy loads of blurays I watch tons of catchup TV.. But I also rip my blurays to allow me to watch them when away from home. Streaming is costly on mobile broadband so even though I pay for content I can't use it often without resorting to ripping.

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