Following several legal setbacks, a Danish anti-piracy group which represents the music and movie industry, has announced that it will stop going after illegal file-sharers. The outfit came to this decision after it lost several court cases against alleged copyright infringers.
A citizen is so tired of his country’s copyright laws he has reported himself to an anti-piracy group. In his written confession, the ‘pirate’ admits to copying more than one hundred purchased movies and TV shows for his own use – legal in Denmark – but breaking DRM on the same is an act forbidden under Danish law.
ISPs and the entertainment industries are in negotiations to set up a so-called ‘pirate review board’ in Denmark. The body will oversee and mediate in cases of copyright infringement by alleged online pirates and try to stop large organizations ending up in court, such as in The Pirate Bay and AllofMP3 domain blocking cases.
In 2008 a Danish court ruled in favor of the IFPI, and ordered the ISP Tele2/Telenor to block all access to The Pirate Bay. Now a petition from the ISP against the decision has been accepted, which will see the appeal go Supreme Court.
Tough anti-piracy laws in Denmark have notably caused some serious problems for The Pirate Bay, as ISPs there were forced to block the world’s largest tracker. The law allows outfits such as IFPI to shut down sites with relative ease but this imbalance towards rights holders will be addressed in a new report due soon.
Earlier this week a Danish court decided that an ISPs have to block access to The Pirate Bay. In response to the judgment, three ISPs have already announced that they will take the case to the Supreme Court. In addition, The Pirate Bay itself now says it will sue the anti-piracy outfit IFPI if the ISPs fail to overturn the ruling.
TDC, Denmark’s largest ISP and owner of most of the cables, has decided to block access to The Pirate Bay. TDC took the step following an earlier decision made by a Danish judge who ordered another ISP, Tele2, to do the same. The case is currently under appeal, but TDC decided to block the BitTorrent tracker as a precaution.
Earlier this year a Danish court ordered the ISP ‘Tele2′ to block its customers from accessing The Pirate Bay. The appeal of this initial ruling was lost two weeks ago, but the case is far from over. Tele2 has decided to appeal the decision before the Supreme Court, supported by Denmark’s telecommunications industry association.
Led by the IFPI, the music industry has continued its European tour to convince governments and ISPs to implement a ‘3 strikes’ model to deal with alleged file-sharers. However, recently leaked comments from politicians indicate that chances for Denmark to adopt the scheme are now dead.
A man who was tracked sharing over 13,000 music tracks on Direct Connect back in 2005 has lost his appeal. The Vestre Landsret, one of Denmark’s higher courts, has ordered the middle-aged man to pay $24,400 (160,000 kroner) in compensation.
A man accused of being a music pirate has been cleared by a Danish court. The man denied the claims of the IFPI, based on his assertion that someone else must have accessed his wireless router to commit the infringements. This is the second major defeat for the IFPI in Denmark over the so-called ‘wireless defense’.
