In August 2009, Stockholm’s district court ordered Black Internet to disconnect The Pirate Bay from the Internet or face fines of 500,000 kronor ($64,527). The ISP quickly complied with the ruling and the site temporarily went dark, but quickly reappeared with a new host.

The very next day following its decision to disconnect The Pirate Bay, Black Internet’s infrastructure was sabotaged with cost implications of “millions of kronor”. Although it was never proven, many believed that the attack and the blacking out of the world’s most famous BitTorrent site were connected.

After initially saying it wouldn’t appeal the district court’s decision, Black Internet changed its mind. “This is the first time in Sweden that an operator has been ordered to stop delivering Internet to someone. We want to know if it’s correct to do so,” said company boss CEO Victor Möller. The appeal was granted.

Last month the Svea Court of Appeals made its decision and for Black Internet the outcome was poor.

The Court ordered Black Internet to “stop providing Internet access to the TPB web site consisting of a web site including search engine and databasefunctions on which torrent files may be stored and a tracker.”

Even though the ISP is no longer servicing The Pirate Bay, the scope of this injunction appears to be broader than first thought. Not only must it never host the site, it must also stop the rest of its regular customers from accessing The Pirate Bay, making it the first ISP in Sweden ordered to block the site.

“We have chosen to block traffic into and out of the IP addresses that are using the Pirate Bay,” said Black Internet’s Victor Möller. “We made a decision on our assessment that this was the only way to live up to the Court of Appeal’s decision.”

Although being precise is difficult, Möller estimates that the block affects many thousands of businesses and individuals, many of which are keen to reestablish links with the site.

“They are looking for more tips and advice on getting past this block,” notes Möller. “There seems to be a great need to reach the Pirate Bay.”

TorrentFreak is awaiting comments from both Black Internet and Hollywood lawyer Monique Wadsted and will update this article with that information as soon as it arrives.

Update: Court of appeals judge Ulrika Gustavsson Stenbäck has been speaking with Swedish media and has stated that Black Internet’s interpretation of the injunction has gone too far.

“The decision meant no general duty to supervise over what people do online, or a general duty to stop someone from getting into the Pirate Bay. It is clear in our decision. Our decision relates only to Black Internet not providing internet access [hosting] to The Pirate Bay.”

It seems at this stage that Black Internet is blocking The Pirate Bay but doesn’t have to.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The site’s bandwidth supplier, Black Internet, was told it would face penalties of 500,000 kronor ($70,600) if it failed to carry out the order of the court.

The company complied, but after initially deciding it would simply accept the decision, its management later changed their mind and said they would appeal. Unless they did so, they noted, the same kind of action could be taken against other sites and ISPs with possibly far-reaching implications.

“This is the first time in Sweden that an operator has been ordered to stop delivering Internet to someone. We want to know if it’s correct to do so,” said Black Internet CEO Victor Möller at the time.

The ISP has now been authorized to take the decision to the Court of Appeal, but unlike Black Internet had requested the earlier verdict remains intact until the Court of Appeal decided otherwise.

“This is such a fundamentally important issue as far as ISP responsibility goes,” said Victor Möller to SR.se. “It is not important for us if we can deliver bandwidth to The Pirate Bay or not – it is about the principle,” Möller concluded.

Although the case will set an important precedent for ISPs in Sweden, The Pirate Bay itself hardly suffered as the site simply switched to a new provider and returned within a few hours.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The court ordered the site’s bandwidth supplier, Black Internet, to disconnect the site from the Internet or face penalties of 500,000 kronor ($70,600). The ISP complied immediately – it had no choice if they were to comply with the law.

The Pirate Bay was quickly back up with a new bandwidth supplier but now several Swedish political parties are being openly critical of the law used to threaten Black Internet with fines as punishment for failing to stop the actions of others. The politicians are now calling for a change in the law.

Camilla Lindberg, who sits in parliament for the Liberal Party, told SR.se that she believes that in this case, threatening an ISP with damages is taking things too far.

“To silence an operator, I think this is outrageous. We need to review the law and we need a proper investigation,” she said.

The Green Party, Left Party and Center Party are also critical over the way the law was applied.

Johan Linander, spokesperson for the Center Party who also sits in the parliamentary Justice Committee noted that for other breaches of law, it is up to ISPs to decide whether to shut down its customers or not, “but in terms of copyright, there is a kind of censorship with the help of this penalty,” he said.

Other politicians, including Social Democrat Justice Minister Thomas Bodstrom who sponsored the 2005 law, and the Conservatives, are refusing to comment since the criminal case of The Pirate Bay is still ongoing.

Christian Democrat Otto von Arnold told Sveriges Radio that he felt that the courts had done the right thing.

Whether or not the law is flawed or needs to be amended doesn’t change the fact that the court action has done little to change the reality on the ground. The Pirate Bay is online and although a little unstable initially, is now reporting tracking nearly 23,000,000 peers.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The court ordered the site’s bandwidth supplier, Black Internet, to disconnect TPB or face penalties of 500,000 kronor ($70,600). The ISP immediately complied, saying that it had no choice but to uphold the law.

Today, Black Internet have some serious problems of their own. According to CEO Victor Möller, his company’s infrastructure has been sabotaged and is suffering substantial damages.

At the time of writing, Black Internet customers are still experiencing serious disruption to their Internet services. Black Internet has many customers that resell Internet access, so the knock-on effects could be significant. One customer, One Call Support, said that the cost implications for them run to “millions of Swedish kronor.”

Möller said the company is working with technicians and the police to find out what has happened. One thing, he says, is certain – the attack was deliberate.

More on this breaking news as we get it.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The court ordered the site’s major bandwidth supplier, Black Internet, to disconnect TPB from the Internet or face penalties of 500,000 kroner ($70,600). The ISP complied, saying that it had no choice but to uphold the law.

The censorship of The Pirate Bay will continue pending the outcome of a civil action taken by several entertainment companies including Disney, Universal, Warner, Columbia, Sony, NBC and Paramount.

Rick Falkvinge, leader of The Pirate Party said: “This is absolutely ridiculous. The Court seems to consider themselves above the Constitution,” while criticizing the effect that these civil actions are having on freedom of speech. “This clarifies how copyright law has become untenable, and how information is lacking political skills in the judiciary,” he added.

Black Internet is probably not the only supplier of bandwidth to The Pirate Bay, so it may be possible for them to reconnect to the Internet elsewhere. Whether or not another Swedish supplier would even consider doing that is seriously in doubt.

Update: As expected, The Pirate Bay site relocated and is back online (DNS still has to update for some people). A Pirate Bay insider told TorrentFreak that they “got a new connection to the net.” The tracker is still down and is expected to be fully operational tomorrow morning, we were told. Ever since their servers were raided back in 2006 they were prepared for takedown attempts like this.

“The MAFIAA has spent millions of dollars and endless amounts of time to get this ban in order. Our guess is that they also bribed a bit to get it since it violates so many laws not only in Sweden but also in the EU, not to mention violations against human rights. And what do they have to show for it? 3 hours of partial downtime,” the Pirate Bay team adds.

The t-shirt below (currently the logo on the Pirate Bay homepage) will be sent to the people responsible for the takedown attempt tomorrow morning, the Pirate Bay insider told TorrentFreak.

Another update: The temporary host has a problem with its fiber causing the site to go offline again. Meanwhile, the downtime is causing traffic spikes for other torrent sites and trackers.

And another update: The site is back online.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.