Copyright Law

Court Rejects Record Label?s Demands to Fine, Gag, Shutter the Pirate Bay

By soulxtc

Says the BitTorrent tracker site must first have a chance to respond before it takes action.

Last week record industry lawyers began playing hardball to punish Swedish BitTorrent tracker site the Pirate Bay in the wake of its conviction for the facilitation of copyright infringement.

Danowsky Partners law firm filed documents with the Stockholm District Court on behalf of the Swedish affiliates of Universal, EMI, Sony, and Warner Records urging the court to start fining the four founders of the Pirate Bay, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, and Peter Sunde, for each day the site isn?t taken offline.

Also named in the motion was Black Internet AB, the company which hosts the site.

The record industry even asked that the fines apply before the District Court rules on the request and that Neij, Svartholm Warg, and Sunde be barred from speaking out on the matter until the case has had a final verdict in the Swedish court system.

?Despite the outcome of the criminal case, the Infringement Service continues to be accessible via the internet, which continually causes harm to [the record companies] (and their rights holders),? reads the motion.

The District Court has now formally rejected the record industry’s demands so that the Pirate Bay could have a chance to actually respond.

Imagine that.

The record industry would love nothing more than to twist Swedish courts to meet its needs, however unethical it may be.

All the Pirate Bay has been asking for is a “fair trial,” one where a judge doesn’t hang out with the plaintiff and the chief cop doesn’t get a cushy job with plaintiff either.

At least this time they seemed to get their wish.

jared@zeropaid.com

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on May 25, 2009 (boomark / email).