The Pirate Bay Ordered To Block Dutch Users

secmartin writes "In a totally unexpected ruling, a Dutch court has decided that The Pirate Bay should block visitors from the Netherlands within 10 days or face a fine of €30,000 per defendant per day. Peter Sunde has already announced that he will appeal the ruling. Even though the defendants sent a letter explaining that they were unable to come to the hearing and provided arguments in their favor, these were ignored by the judge because they failed to appear in his court. The full text of the ruling was just published (in Dutch, PDF) by Peter Sunde, and further coverage is available at Forbes."

Comments

Failure to appear in court...

[CannonballHead]

... is a big deal in most courts, as far as I know.

Even for something like a traffic ticket, if the cop doesn't show up in court, you're let off... (in the US anyways)

Re:Failure to appear in court...

[Lumpy]

BUT, most courts require proof you were served with papers to appear at court.

Honestly the Judge is the jackass here. If they were properly served and responded with "we cant make the court date" the judge cant do this.

Otherwise, I could sue every one of you in court, and if you did not know of the court case, would not show up, and I would automatically win.

The whole story is not there.

Re:Failure to appear in court...

[Atrox666]

It's also a DUTCH court..they are not Dutch and do not own a Dutch business. This Judge is out of his juristdiction and can basicly go blow himself.

Re:Failure to appear in court...

[Zsub]

Not true. BREIN have argued that several pages where they put up the notice were visited by IP addresses belonging to TPB. Also it was the judge's opinion that it would have been quite impossible not to notice the media commotion around this hearing.

I personally find the latter point somewhat dubitable: why the heck would they follow Dutch news anyway, but the former point is to me somewhat more convincing.

One also has to note by the way that the entire Dutch IT-crowd has their panties in a bunch over this, because our Christfaggy government earlier announced plans to introduce a filter not entirely different from the thing the Australian wants. Many see this as an important first step towards that goal and a very large step back for our freedom and society.

Re:Failure to appear in court...

[Animaether]

The judge can, and will, do this.

In point 1.2 the judge established that the defendants had written an undated letter saying that the defendants will not be showing up in court. In point 1.3 the judge established that seeing as they wrote the letter, it is ridiculous to claim that they were in fact -not- aware of the proceedings before them, and the motions for dismissal thus be struck down; after all, they could have either been present just fine or have sent representation.

Further, they judge accepts the evidence by BREIN, that they followed:
- the official paths of notification (point 2.3; going through swedish authorities, and through a Swedish bailiff)
- unofficial paths (point 2.4)
-- e-mail to the defendants' e-mail address
--- (the judge and accepted the evidence by BREIN that one of the defendants -had- replied from one of the e-mail addresses written to as late as May 6th, in response to a notification about this very case (again, point 2.4) )
-- e-mail the domain holder's e-mail address)
-- wrote to the lawyers who had represented the defendants in a recent court case
-- registered mail, containing the subpoena in Swdish) to each of the defendants addresses.
--- (the judge accepted evidence by BREIN, from the courier service, that the mail was delivered)
-- a Twitter post
-- a Facebook post
--- (for the curious: whether or not these are reasonable venues for notification has yet to be determined. In the case a defendant can't be found, the posting in newspapers and such -is- acceptable. It is likely that the above two are found to be acceptable as well)

As a result, the judge once again surmises (still in point 2.4) that it is not likely that the defendants were -not- (timely) aware of these proceedings, and most certainly -could- have been present, or represented, in court.

Ok... so how do you tell?

[Kenja]

How are you going to get users to take the How Dutch Am I test before accessing the web page?

Proxies, anyone?

[Bangmaker]

How would TBP know that the visitors were from the Netherlands anyway? As far as I know, there is not much to go buy other than an IP address, which can easily be hidden by almost any proxy.

Re:Proxies, anyone?

[Artraze]

Well, the obvious solution is to put a "What country do you live in?" dropdown on the front page. Thus you no longer have to worry about IP addresses and all that. Sure the users may lie, but that's their problem...

Court ruling in english

[SRabbelier]

Remcokatz on twitter was nice enough to translate the verdict into english and put the result on.

What we need to do ...

[Archangel Michael]

What we need to do, is get a US judge to order the Dutch Judge to over turn the ruling or face a fine of $100,000(US) for every Dutch user that is prevented from accessing the Pirate Bay. ...

On a side note, does the Judge realize that a simple proxy server can bypass his ruling? There is NO WAY to enforce such a stupid ruling. The Technically Illiterate should not be making what amounts to a new law regarding Technological issues.

This whole thing would be silly if the pointy headed elites weren't involved. Is it me, or are they (pointy headed elites) some of the stupidest people on the planet or what?

And In Other News

[MightyMartian]

Seattle, WA - The Kingdom of the Netherlands has been ordered to pay Irving Schwartzmizzlegub $50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 for causing his pet cockerspanial , Peppy-dee, to die. Judge Thomas Hikemyjacksbitchpeople awarded Schwartzmizzlegub the large sum because, in his own words "These fucking people live by dikes, and I got Herpes in Amsterdam when I was 20."

Schwartzmizzlegub alleged that the osmotic psychowaves emanating from several Dutch cities caused little Peppy-dee to spiral into canine depression, prostitute himself at a nearby 7-11, and ultimately take his own life by leaping into the Slurpee machine.

The large size of the award is assumed to be because the Kingdom of the Netherlands never appeared in court. A representative of the Dutch ambassador tried to explain that countries can't actually move, but the judge rejected that, called the Ambassador's representative "a sub-German freek" and made the award.

Schwartzmizzlegub is planning to use the money to clone Elvis and make him into a sex-slave.

This article is protected by nuclear technology by AP

Re:Failure to appear is an insult

[CorporateSuit]

Hello Friend,

This is an order to appear before the Nigerian High Court for fraud charges that have been perpetrated against you. I am a widow and also the judge of the court and have asked that you appear to prosecute the man who stole your identity. The fine for that in Nigeria is $600,000,000 (SIX HUNDRED MILLION US DOLLARS) and if you appear in court, we will award you 1% of the damages, which is $6,000,000 (SIX MILLION US DOLLARS) as a token of thanks for your time and honor to justice. Please call the number below in order to verify your plans to assist us with this trial.

God Bless,
Frank Liu Xiong
+34.37.342.34209
866 Muskrat Way
Habubajab
Nigeria

The Netherlands invaded Sweden?

[houghi]

I would think that is the bigger headline here. Otherwise, how could a Dutch court demand anything from a Swedish company?

Or perhaps they should demand the legal drinking age in the US to be 16.

And the irony is that downloading is legal in the Netherlands, just not uploading.

Yes, dissolve the EU.

[PopeRatzo]

I guess there's something to be said for sovereignty. Seems the main effect of the European Union has been to limit individual rights.

Re:Isn't there an easy solution to this?

[corbettw]

Maybe someone should provide the instructions in a torrent.

Re:Isn't there an easy solution to this?

[Jurily]

Could someone please explain to me what authority a Dutch court has on a Swedish site?

Re:Isn't there an easy solution to this?

[Anonymous Coward]

They do not have. But this was a 'kort geding'. It has no equivalent in US law. You could compare it to a preliminary injunction or summary judgement.

BREIN simply states: The rights of the artists we represent are violated (under Dutch copyright law you cannot offer services that allow third parties to infringe upon the copyrights of others), and this happens in the Netherlands, and it happens now and it needs to be stopped quickly because the damages cannot continue.

The TPB could have said, or could have sent someone who would have said: 'BREIN is lying, nothing is offered in the Netherlands' or whatever. Since they failed to show up and didn't send someone to represent them the judge, who does not do a full investigation of the facts, only has the 'evidence' BREIN provides.

From that point of view it is a clear violation of Dutch copyright law, which is happening under Dutch jurisdiction (albeit by Swedish persons) which needs to stop. And, since TPB was not there, they are 'convicted in absentia'. This is a normal course of events.

If you do not show up, the only thing the judge can do is check whether the claims are not blatantly unlawful. And if not, they are almost always awarded. As happened here. Most lawyers could have told them this would happen if they didn't send someone and the judge deemed it probable they did hear they were summoned.

The latter is so you can't run and hide in order to escape conviction.

Re:Isn't there an easy solution to this?

[Jurily]

(under Dutch copyright law you cannot offer services that allow third parties to infringe upon the copyrights of others)

In my country, it is illegal for me to read your post, therefore you will be sentenced to death shortly.