The court ruled that the site’s three operators were assisting in copyright infringement and if they fail to ban Dutch users, it will have to pay penalties of 50,000 euros per day, according to TorrentFreak.com.
This lawsuit is of interest to adult because of numerous on-going copyright infringment lawsuits and implications those lawsuits may have for file sharers and content producers.
The ruling confirms an earlier judgment, which ordered Pirate Bay to remove a list of torrents linking to copyrighted works and make its website inaccessible to Dutch visitors.
The judge ruled that Pirate Bay itself is not necessarily guilty of copyright infringement, but according to the court, the site’s operators assist in copyright infringement by allowing and encouraging its users to share torrents.
The defendants had argued that they weren’t the owners of the site, pointing instead to a Seychelles-based company. The court rejected this defense because the defendants couldn’t name the current owners or provide documentation. Therefore, the court concluded the three defendants were responsible for the site.
Based on the defendants inaction and claims they don’t own the site, it’s unlikely Dutch users will be cut off.
Because of Pirate Bay’s lack of response, Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN has started a lawsuit against Dutch ISP Ziggo, demanding it blocks user access to Pirate Bay.
