Dutch court rules Pirate Bay illegal file-sharing website must leave the country... or face a £2.5million fine
A Dutch court has ruled three men connected with The Pirate Bay file-sharing website must block traffic between it and the Netherlands within 10 days.
The written ruling concludes that the men have control over the site and ordered them 'each separately and together, to stop and keep stopped the infringements on copyright and related rights of Stichting Brein in the Netherlands,' or face a charge of £27,000 per day.
Stichting Brein is a Dutch-based organisation funded by various copyright holder groups that brought the civil suit against The Pirate Bay.
It was not clear how the court expected the site's operators to block traffic to the site, or whether it can enforce its order if they decline or are unable to comply.
The website is the world's leading illegal file-sharing websites
'The Pirate Bay is not a legal person who can be summoned, but a cooperative,' the ruling noted.
The Pirate Bay provides an index to BitTorrent files, which can be used for trading media such as movies, music and computer games.
The site has more than 20 million users globally.
In April, a Swedish court found that four Swedish nationals connected with the site had helped millions of people download copyright-protected material.
They were given one-year prison terms and ordered to pay a fine of £2.5million.
Three of those four - Hans Frederik Lennart Neij, Peter Kalevi Sunde Kolmisoppi, and Per Gottfrid Svartholm Warg - were named in the Brein suit.
They didn't show up for an earlier hearing on July 21, but the court noted that they had sent a note that arrived July 27.
'In it, they write that they didn't know about the hearing and that they are not able to come to Amsterdam ... or to hire a lawyer to represent them,' Tonkens wrote.
The judge said they also made a substantive argument concluding that Brein's suit should be rejected. But she said the letter didn't have any legal standing.
A Swedish company, Global Gaming Factory X AB, says it hopes to buy The Pirate Bay domain name and related Web sites from their owner for £6 million and turn the site into a service that will have the blessings of the recording and motion picture industries.
A separate ruling by the same judge said that GGF will have to enforce a traffic ban to the Netherlands from the first day it acquires The Pirate Bay, if it does.
The Pirate Bay website is registered in Sweden to a company called Reservella, which GGF says is located in the Seychelles.
Most watched News videos
- Shocking moment mother pummels student after breaking up fight
- Moment missing 3-year-old is found crying by police and K9s
- Tom Parker-Bowles brands steak slice as Greggs 'crowning glory'
- Horner: 'We need to move forward, time now to focus on Formula One'
- Youths destroy garden wall after 'stealing car' and crashing into it
- Stunned diners wonder whether they should help 'drunk' Sheridan Smith
- Pro-Palestine students surround others talking about antisemitism
- Inside the bizarre fake funeral staged by a convicted paedophile
- Footage shows baby born at NHS hospital before tragically died
- Prince William arrives at the Oval Cricket to meet Earthshot winner
- Sam Murphy's husband speaks out as man is charged with her murder
- Sex Pistol John Lydon blames immigration for 'division' in the UK