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Norwegian ISP Refuses to Block The Pirate Bay

By soulxtc

BitTorrent tracker site tells entertainment industry that "ISPs are not complicit in the actions of its customers on the Internet" and blames copyright holders for "old-fashioned" business models for selling digital content. Norwegian ISP Telenor has blasted the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the Norwegian videogram association (Norsk Videogramforening) and the Norwegian Film Distributors Association (Norske Filmbyråers Forening), after they tried to coerce the company into blocking Swedish Bittorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay. In Telenor's opinion, "ISPs are not complicit in the actions of its customers on the Internet," and angrily rejected their demands in a letter to Simonsen Advokatfirma DA, the law firm which forwarded it. "We comply with all relevant laws and regulations and can see no legal basis for any ISP to act in the interests of digital intellectual property rights holders by blocking individual websites," says Ragnar Kårhus, head of Telenor Norway. "Asking an ISP to control and assess what Internet users can and cannot download is just as wrong as asking the post office to open and read letters and decide what should and should not be delivered.

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on March 03, 2009 (boomark / email).