The Pirate Bay ordered to remove torrents
According to TorrentFreak The Pirate Bay has won its appeal against Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN. The original hearing saw the website operators being ordered by default to enforce a site-wide block on Dutch IP addresses.
Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm appealed the ruling, as they were not even present at the hearing due to the fact that they were unaware it was taking place until two days prior.
The Amsterdam court announced yesterday that the default judgment had been nullified and that the three did not have to block Dutch IPs across the entire domain.
The court also concluded that The Pirate Bay is not directly guilty of copyright infringement, but it does assist in infringement by facilitating the sharing of torrents.
In defence, lawyers representing The Pirate Bay trio argued that the site was not actually owned by them, but the mysterious Seychelles based company Reservella. The argument was rejected by the court as no evidence could be provided to substantiate the claim.
As a result, the Amsterdam court holds the defendants responsible for the site, and has ordered them to remove a list of torrent files from the site within three months. Non-compliance will result in a 5 000 euro (±R56 000) fine for every day the torrents remain active.
The Pirate Bay has however been ordered to block Dutch IP access to any areas of the site on which users can download copyrighted files. The defendants are considering whether to appeal the judgment.
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