A Dutch court on Thursday temporarily banned Swedish file-sharing website The Pirate Bay from operating in the Netherlands by granting an application brought by a copyright lobby group.<\/p>\n
A judge ordered three owners of the site to “cease infringing the copyright of the members” of Stichting Brein, a trade association which represents the Dutch recording industry. It had brought an urgent application for the ban at the district court in Amsterdam.<\/p>\n
For every day the ruling is ignored, the owners will be fined €30 000 euros (R331 000) up to a maximum of three million euros, said a judgment published by the court.<\/p>\n
The interdict would remain valid for two months, by which time Stichting Brein must have filed an application for a permanent ruling, or it will lapse.<\/p>\n
The judge ordered Frederik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Peter Sunde to immediately make their website inaccessible to users in the Netherlands.<\/p>\n
Founded in 2003, The Pirate Bay makes it possible to skirt copyright fees and share music, film and computer game files for free using bit torrent technology, or peer-to-peer links offered on the site.<\/p>\n
None of the material can be found on the server of The Pirate Bay, which claims to have more than 20 million users worldwide.<\/p>\n
A Swedish court in April found Neij, Sunde and Swartholm guilty with a fourth colleague, Carl Lundstroem, for promoting copyright infringement by running the site and sentenced them to a year in prison.<\/p>\n
They were also ordered to pay damages of 30 million kronor to the movie and recording industry.<\/p>\n
The four have appealed the verdict, though no date has been set for the hearing.<\/p>\n
In June, a Swedish gaming group said it would buy The Pirate Bay, one of the world’s most popular file-sharing sites, for €5.6 million.<\/p>\n
The company, Global Gaming Factory (GGF), said it planned to begin paying copyright fees once the deal is completed.<\/p>\n
Stichting Brein welcomed the ruling, describing The Pirate Bay as “patently illegal” and saying GGF would also be held to the letter of the law.<\/p>\n