Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Swedish Court: ISPs Can't Be Forced To Ban the Pirate Bay (thelocal.se)

Posted by Soulskill on from the get-out-of-here-with-that-nonsense dept.

An anonymous reader writes: After years of rulings against The Pirate Bay around Europe, a Swedish court has now ruled that the country's ISPs can't be forced to block access to the torrent indexer. The case centers around copyright holders and an ISP called Bredbandsbolaget. The ISP refused to comply with demands that music pirates be cut off from internet access. When rightsholders couldn't get traction that way, they added Bredbandsbolaget to their list of targets. The court found that the ISP does not "participate" in copyright infringement carried out by its subscribers, and is thus not liable for any damages incurred.

55 comments

  1. the start by Kkloe · · Score: 2

    this is just the first court it passes, lets hope it passes all the other

  2. YEAH! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Take that!

  3. Recent story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Didn't we have a similar ruling, except saying the opposite recently in the USA? The court decided that the ISP was liable for copyright infringment or something.

    1. Re:Recent story by davester666 · · Score: 1

      yes, comcast, for failing to obey the never-ending demands of big media.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    2. Re:Recent story by darkain · · Score: 1

      I think you mean COX? ... because Comcast *IS* said big media.

    3. Re:Recent story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It isn't that the people of the US aren't free. Rather, the amount of freedom an individual has is carefully tallied with green slips of paper.

  4. Now only if... by mlauzon · · Score: 2

    Cox Communications was a European country, because they lost this type of ruling in the US recently.

    --
    Michael
    http://s1.sfgame.us/index.php?rec=58163
    1. Re:Now only if... by mlauzon · · Score: 1

      That should be company, stupid autocorrect on my phone!

      --
      Michael
      http://s1.sfgame.us/index.php?rec=58163
    2. Re:Now only if... by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yeah, well, don't hold your breath ... if the US doesn't launch some form of trade sanctions I'll be surprised.

      The US is leading the charge on entrenching in law that the copyright cartel has absolute veto over technology and the internet.

      There's a reason why US foreign policy has been pushing to have treaties include this shit, and why the representatives of the copyright lobby are effectively writing the text of the laws and treaties -- and it's because the US politicians have been bought on behalf of these industries.

      I wish more rulings like this would happen, and these clowns would find themselves on much shorter leashes (if not short ropes and long drops).

      But things like the TPP and every other treaty has proven that the US government is essentially now working on behalf of the copyright cartel, and are prepared to keep giving them bullshit laws which give them all the power, and with little or no penalties and oversight.

      Copyright owners have far more legal rights than you or I, and increasingly an accusation of copyright supersedes your right to have someone show you their evidence.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    3. Re:Now only if... by davecb · · Score: 1

      A US court rejected a motion to dismiss: the case still has to go to the jury. And the judge appears to have ignored evidence before him, so it may not even get that far.

      --
      davecb@spamcop.net
    4. Re:Now only if... by Kjella · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yeah, well, don't hold your breath ... if the US doesn't launch some form of trade sanctions I'll be surprised.

      Since the EU is a free trade block and Sweden is a member, I doubt they can do much of anything. Through good services like Spotify they've curbed much of the public appeal of piracy and the Pirate Party is at ~0.4% far from any seats in the general elections and they lost their MEPs in the 2014 elections. They got more to lose than gain by revitalizing the public debate again, particularly anything that looks like US interference which is what pissed many Swedes off back in 2006.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    5. Re:Now only if... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That's fine by me. Since they have no problem with breaking the covenant with the public, I have no problem in pirating all their shit.

    6. Re:Now only if... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stupid user for enabling automisspell ... erm, autocorrect

    7. Re:Now only if... by mlauzon · · Score: 1

      It's enabled by default, I just never remove it, because it does come in handy sometimes as if you use a common sentence it keeps it for you to use over and over again.

      --
      Michael
      http://s1.sfgame.us/index.php?rec=58163
    8. Re:Now only if... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      iApple can't use the learning auto-correct technology 'cause I have the patent on it.
      So users are stuck with spell correction that always spell corrects to a particular word,
      not to a word that that user may consistently misspell...

    9. Re:Now only if... by sumdumass · · Score: 1

      Exactly. . I don't know how many times i need to tell idiots to get off my lawn each and every day. It seems like more and more every day too.

      Oh, and I'm not sure Cox lost anything on this front except the ability to claim a DMCA exception. Of course in order to do so, they would have had to blindly follow the takedown process which cutting internet access to anything more than the specific content is not part of.

      In other words, they may still be exempt from liability, just not according to a law that doesn't seem to apply to the specific circumstances.

    10. Re:Now only if... by beastofburdon · · Score: 1

      Personally, I really, really want to watch Texas execute a corporation. If they lined up all the executives of the members of RIAA and MPAA and killed them firing squad style I would watch all the Cowboys games and even cheer for them for a year.

  5. Nowhere but Sweden by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wish other countries' courts had this much common sense.

    Blaming ISPs for copyright infringement is like blaming companies who pave streets for providing bank robbers with a quick escape.

    1. Re:Nowhere but Sweden by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The difference being that ISPs can prevent copyright infringement, but pavement companies have significantly less control over their end product.

    2. Re:Nowhere but Sweden by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Oh let me guess. By just blocking the torrent protocol, right? Or blocking Usenet access? How about any other protocols that are used solely for piracy?

    3. Re:Nowhere but Sweden by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Nonsense. Pavement people put up all sorts of barriers. And you know what? They can be sued if the barrier fails. But it's physical failure that can cause physical harm.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    4. Re:Nowhere but Sweden by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Bullshit

      It is impossible to stop someone from accessing any site they want.

      You are technically inept.

      The easiest way to copy music illegally is to download a video from YouTube and use ffmpeg to strip out the music.

      You going to propose that YouTube gets blocked?

      google.com has the most links to infringing copies in the world. Block them.

    5. Re:Nowhere but Sweden by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now if only Sweden can apply some common sense to their insane immigration policy and self-loathing politicians.

  6. Bredbandsbolaget är Toppen! by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 3

    I've been a very satisfied B2 customer for several years. Dependable service with no caps, no filtering, and no bullshit.

    Thanks, and keep up the good work!

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  7. And 99% of the world don't give shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cold and dark up there. No wonder that Australian guy(tm) left.

    1. Re:And 99% of the world don't give shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He left because rape is illegal in Sweden.

    2. Re:And 99% of the world don't give shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only if you rape humans. :)

    3. Re:And 99% of the world don't give shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny how the "rape' allegations only surfaces after his embarrassed the US military by exposing their illegal and evil deeds.

      Funny how that works.

    4. Re:And 99% of the world don't give shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      correlation is not causation.

  8. this basically says "they are not an accomplice" by Escogido · · Score: 3, Interesting

    so cannot be forced to shut down access only on these particular grounds, but not in general. Russia, for one example, passed a law saying ISPs are required to cut access to offending web sites and services if prosecution (not even a judge) holds them in violation. I kinda expect the western world to adopt similar legislation soon.

  9. Uber and pirate bay by fluffernutter · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm still not quite sure why Uber is allowed to exist contrary to laws that so obviously intended make their business illegal but are allowed to slip between the wording. On the other hand, Pirate Bay is not technically illegal at all because it only tracks the pirated files and does not provided them directly, but yet the laws are being extended to apply to them. I guess the people with money are allowed to bend the law now and apply it how they see fit to the area they see fit and the rest of us will just be expected to live by it.

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    1. Re:Uber and pirate bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      It actually makes perfect sense. Think about it like this: Google Maps (The Pirate Bay) provides the location of brick and mortar stores (torrents), and in turn that allows thieves to locate goods that can be stolen (files). Therefore, it is only logical to think that Google is contributing to crime, and they should be sued.

    2. Re:Uber and pirate bay by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I guess the people with money are allowed to bend the law now and apply it how they see fit

      More accurately ... the copyright lobby has bought and paid for laws which they interpret how are applied, enforced outside of the judicial system, with abysmally low thresholds for evidence ... and with shockingly little penalties for them if they misuse it.

      In case you have missed, copyright related laws have reached a special level of stupidity, because they've been paid for and written by the people who benefit from them. This shit is now routinely entrenched in high-level treaty negotiations, where governments act on behalf of the interests of multi-national corporations -- and literally just use whatever text provided by the lobbyists.

      They're not bending any laws, they're outright financing the adoption of laws which are entirely written to give them massive amounts of latitude to do as they please without penalty.

      Governments these days are pretty much openly working for the corporations in this matter.

      Copyright is like kiddie porn and terrorism; it lives in a special place outside of most other forms of laws, and builds in shortcuts and bypasses to legal protections you would normally have.

      This is way beyond bending the law, it's about buying their own laws.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    3. Re:Uber and pirate bay by fluffernutter · · Score: 2

      I just want to know.... if I go out in the world and I run across the street, should I get a J-walking ticket?

      If the wording of the law matters more than the intent, then I should not because I was running not walking. Just a simple example, but I'm sure all kinds of laws could be avoided if you look closely at the wording.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    4. Re:Uber and pirate bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you really believe your local statute talks about jaywalking (which is how it is spelled) with wording you can get around?

    5. Re:Uber and pirate bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      well yes, thats how laws work, if it's a good law it has relatively little loopholes, if its bad itll have a ton

    6. Re:Uber and pirate bay by fluffernutter · · Score: 2

      That's unfortunate... because everyone can understand the intent of laws but only people with money for lawyers can work around the wording of them.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    7. Re:Uber and pirate bay by Kjella · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Fortunately for the rest of us, they can't legislate reality. They take down Napster, it goes fully distributed. They flood the networks with shit, torrent sites provide ratings. They go after TPBs trackers, we get magnet links. They start blocking at ISP level, torrents go encrypted. And sometimes they run into setbacks, they couldn't shut down the Bittorrent protocol. They haven't been able to shut down file lockers. Their mass lawsuits/shakedowns have largely been halted. VPNs and open Wifi is still legal. And when they do score a win like being able to shut down a site, a zillion mirrors and proxies pop up making it futile.

      The war on piracy hasn't exactly had the same kind of popular appeal as the war on drugs. It is a lot easier to come up with horror stories about crack whores and heroin addicts than about people pirating MP3s. I'm guessing this is the main reason we haven't seen haven't seen bigger legal opposition is the fact that offense is the best defense, so far the easiest solution has been to come up with a better tool. If they manage to get rapid-fire site take downs in the DNS system, there's also the dark web solution. The TOR system isn't built for heavy P2P, but just for getting magnet links - which is the only thing you need to bootstrap the process - it's plenty. So from where I'm standing they might get bigger and bigger guns, but the target is getting harder and harder to hit in the first place and punch through the armor if you do.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    8. Re:Uber and pirate bay by AK+Marc · · Score: 1

      Jaywalking isn't illegal anywhere in the world. Illegally crossing the street is against the law in some places. And jaywalking is a term some people use to describe illegal crossing of the street.

      Yes that matters in law. If everyone tomorrow were to call murder "ham sandwich" Then giving someone a "ham sandwich" would be illegal, but it wouldn't be illegal to give someone a sandwich made of ham. What people call the illegal act has no bearing on the legality of something that sounds similar to the common term for an illegal act.

      --
      Learn to love Alaska
    9. Re:Uber and pirate bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Pirate Bay is not technically illegal at all because it only tracks the pirated files and does not provided them directly, but yet the laws are being extended to apply to them.

      Pirate Bay is doing exactly what Google is doing -- providing links to unauthorized distribution of files. There is no legally-important technical difference between the links provided by the two services, and there is no significant difference in the breadth of the unauthorized content you can find on the two services. They also make money from their sites in an identical way -- by displaying ads.

      The primary reason why Pirate Bay is being targeted is because they are small and poorly-funded, whereas Google has a massive legal team to keep the bad guys at bay.

  10. Re:Sweden also can't ban my bum smacking machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Somebody around here needs to get over their childish obsession with cows. It was funny once, but get some new material already.

  11. Re:Sweden also can't ban my bum smacking machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    C'mon bro, don't be so uptight. Cows are nice. Moooo

  12. Re:Sweden also can't ban my bum smacking machine by darkain · · Score: 1

    1) Use stale memes
    2) Post about cows
    3) ???
    4) PROFIT!

  13. SWEDEN YES! by Lehk228 · · Score: 1

    SWEDEN YES!

    --
    Snowden and Manning are heroes.
  14. Re:Sweden also can't ban my bum smacking machine by cbiltcliffe · · Score: 1

    Cows are for COWS! MOOOO! Cows are all cows!

    Wait.....

    --
    "City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
  15. Re:Sweden also can't ban my bum smacking machine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    sudo apt-get install cowsay && sudo ap-get install fortune
    fortune | cowsay >> moo.txt
    pastebinit -i moo.txt -b [url for favorite pastebin service where you've active api_key]

  16. Except it is by aliquis · · Score: 1

    Expect it obviously is, according to the court.

    I guess, considering the founders was sentenced for "assistance" or something, completely retarded but that's what all of the official Sweden is. Fucking traitors and idiots.

  17. torrent = thief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    .

    Let's get real

    the attraction of torrents and peer-to-peer file sharing is to avoid having to pay for things

    it's that simple

    the fact that the artists / companies / anybody who holds a copyright gets ripped off doesn't seem to matter to a lot of folks

    they are cool with theft, as long as they are the thieves!

    very strange

    .

    1. Re:torrent = thief by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The above post was brought to you by RIAA & MPAA.

    2. Re:torrent = thief by penguinoid · · Score: 1

      Not everyone thinks that granting people 1 billion years* of exclusive use of an idea is something that ought to be supported.

      * Yes, it's only ~100 years now, but do you really think they'll ever let it expire? Since copyright's lifespan is now longer than human's lifespan, making it longer doesn't really make a difference other than to quash historical production so as to push up the price of new production.

      --
      Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
  18. Internet should be viewed as ... by CaptainDork · · Score: 2

    ... a utility like water, electricity and gas (US here).

    A house equipped with all of these can support a meth lab but that doesn't mean that the city water department "participated," legally, in the meth lab.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  19. Anyone else getting bittorent port blocked by ISP? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Transmissions default port 51413 (which IS open in my router) no longer connects to any trackers. I had to use a random port and set the router to use UPNP.