IFPI, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, with support from Finnish anti-piracy group Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Center (CIAPC), filed a lawsuit yesterday in the Helsinki District Court against the administrators of The Pirate Bay.

The admins, whoever and wherever they may be, are ordered to stop facilitating the unauthorized distribution of music and pay compensation to IFPI and CIAPC-affiliated rightsholders for the damages they have allegedly caused through their website.

This latest action follows an October decision from the Helsinki District Court which ordered Finnish ISP Elisa to block subscriber access to The Pirate Bay or face fines. But while Elisa takes that decision to the Court of Appeal, IFPI is piling the pressure onto other Internet service providers.

Yesterday the music industry group filed applications in Helsinki and Vantaa to force two further ISPs, Sonera and DNA, to block their customers from accessing TPB. According to IFPI, when combined the subscribers of all three ISPs make up 80% of the total broadband market in Finland.

“This type of inhibition has yielded good results, eg in Italy, where the The Pirate Bay’s popularity has decreased significantly,” said CIAPC’s Executive Director, Antti Kotilainen.

Lauri Rechardt, chief executive of IFPI Finland, said the purpose of this latest action is to hit the “underground economy” and support the increasing uptake of authorized services.

Source: IFPI Sues Pirate Bay Admins in Finland, Demands Further ISP Blocks

The groups demanded that Finnish ISP Elisa should censor The Pirate Bay to protect the copyrights of their members. Elisa, however, refused to do so and described the blocking demands as “unreasonable”. But following a decision today from the Helsinki District Court they are left with no choice.

The court sided with the entertainment industry and ruled that Elisa should block access to The Pirate Bay before November 18, or face a 100,000 euro fine. Aside from various domain names, the court ruling also states that the ISP has to block access to the IP-addresses used by The Pirate Bay servers.

In a response to the ruling Elisa immediately announced that it will appeal the District Court’s decision. The ISP claims that among other things, the ruling is very unclear as it doesn’t state the specific domain names or IP-addresses that should be censored.

Elisa further says that the decision is practically irrelevant in the broader fight against online copyright infringement.

“The industry should focus on measures that can truly reduce piracy in practice, such as making content available online at a reasonable price and without artificial delays,” Elisa’s Henri Korpi said.

The Pirate Bay is currently listed as one of the 50 most-visited websites in Finland, and it is doubtful whether a blockade by Elisa will have much of an effect.

A Pirate Bay spokesperson told TorrentFreak there are many ways to circumvent such censorship attempts, and that the order may actually have the opposite effect to what was intended.

“Blocks in other countries only boosted our traffic numbers, so we see this as free advertising,” we were told.

Earlier this month Belgian ISPs Belgacom and Telenet were hit with a similar verdict, limited to blocking the Pirate Bay’s domain names. This blockade went into effect a few days ago but The Pirate Bay informs TorrentFreak that they haven’t seen a significant drop in traffic from Belgium.

In addition to Belgium, the popular BitTorrent site is currently censored in Ireland, Italy, Turkey and Denmark. An attempt to establish a similar blockade in The Netherlands failed last year because there was no evidence that the majority of an ISPs’ users are infringing copyright through The Pirate Bay.

Source: Finnish ISP Ordered To Block The Pirate Bay

The legal action targeted Elisa, one of the largest ISPs in Finland, demanding that the Internet provider stops providing subscriber access to The Pirate Bay.

While the result in that case is yet to be decided, CIAPC have just pulled off quite a victory in their battle against illicit file-sharing.

During the course of their online anti-piracy monitoring, CIAPC discovered five Internet connections which were making available thousands of music tracks on file-sharing networks. According to the group, in all cases the file-sharer was either an actual Internet subscriber or a family member of a subscriber.

CIAPC took the information to court looking for an order to prevent the individuals continuing with their activities. Now, under Section 60c of Finland’s Copyright Act, a court has granted CIAPC injunctions in three of the cases.

What this means is without the sending of a so-called “first strike” letter, the respective ISPs of the subscribers in question are now required to completely disconnect their infringing customers from the Internet.

“This has not happened in Finland before nor did we expect it to happen,” says Joonas Mäkinen of the Pirate Party of Finland.

Mäkinen told TorrentFreak this morning that legal sanctions available to rightsholders should always be proportionate and that these disconnections overstep the mark.

“This is indeed a worrisome addition to the anti-piracy arsenal. It seems that lately politicians and legal procedures alike have been more focused on how civil rights can be restricted rather than how they can be protected. There shouldn’t even exist anything in the legislation that allows such a limitation to people’s right to communicate,” says Mäkinen.

“With no own means of using their everyday social interactions, working or handling their bills and bank account online, the damages to the accused are unreasonable.”

Furthermore, Mäkinen – who is Vice Chairman of Pirate Party of Finland’s youth organisation, Piraattinuoret – raises the question about the neutrality of Internet service providers in respect of this court-ordered intervention.

“It shouldn’t be surprising that we expect all Internet communications to be governed as responsibly as one’s right to send a letter using postal services. ISPs should not be forced to take back anyone’s right to send electronic messages privately, be it love letters or torrent traffic.

“And if there is evidence of misuse, it is up to the police to handle all individual cases, not copyright organisations demanding a total ban on the communication services.”

Large-scale file-sharers in Finland are indeed usually referred to the police, sometimes with severe consequences. Earlier this year two individuals received huge fines and suspended jail sentences for their part in a file-sharing hub. Whether or not they would have preferred to have their Internet connections taken away instead is a question for them.

While the individuals in all of these cases were caught using a sharing system known as Direct Connect where it is easy to get caught sharing many files at once, CIAPC are warning users of The Pirate Bay that they’re not safe either.

“Many might believe that by using the Pirate Bay they can not get caught, when in fact the result can be they have to pay several hundred euros in compensation,” says CIAPC Managing Director Antti Kotilainen.

“Legal services being offered now are so good that no one should have to download music from an illegal source,” Kotilainen adds, a point contested by Pirate Party of Finland.

“The legal options given to music consumers are definitely not ‘good enough’ yet to compare with Internet filesharing,” says Mäkinen, who goes on to bemoan ongoing global music rights battles, lack of better-than-mp3 quality music on streaming services, DRM and counter-intuitive payment systems.

Whether these injunctions will be replicated again against other file-sharers remains to be seen, but in the meantime Finland must sit and wait to discover if ISP Elisa is ordered to terminate access to The Pirate Bay.

Source: Court Orders ISPs To Disconnect File-Sharers

If it’s up to a group of Finnish Music Industry representatives, Finland will be the next country to join this growing list. Yesterday, the Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Centre (CIAPC) and the local IFPI branch announced that they have filed a lawsuit at the District Court in Helsinki.

The legal action targets Elisa, one of the largest ISPs in Finland, and demands that the Internet provider stops allowing its subscribers to access The Pirate Bay. The BitTorrent site is hugely popular in Finland where it’s listed as the 31st most-visited website according to traffic reports.

According to the music industry there’s no other viable option to stop the mass-scale copyright infringement other than to censor The Pirate Bay.

“We’ve waited and hoped that the Pirate Bay’s admins would cease the service in November 2010, after the criminal conviction at the Swedish Appeal Court,” said music producer representative Lauri Rechardt in a comment. “That did not happen, on the contrary, the number of Finnish users increased instead.”

“The development of a legitimate online market in Finland will not be successful if illegal services such as the Pirate Bay can continue to operate,” Rechardt added.

The President of the Finnish Musicians’ Union Ahti Vänttinen further stressed the need for effective legislative tools to crack down on ‘rogue’ websites.

“It is somewhat tragicomic that, although the illegal activities of Pirate Bay’s founders have been sentenced to imprisonment, the site is still operational in Finland,” Vänttinen said. “Unless this is addressed in Finnish legislation, credibility is at stake. Or is the Internet outside the law?”

Thus far several lawsuits throughout Europe have resulted in a Pirate Bay blockade, but not all.

A Dutch court ruled last year that two of the largest ISPs in the Netherlands don’t have block customer access to The Pirate Bay. According to the court, there was no evidence that the majority of the ISPs’ users are infringing copyright through The Pirate Bay, so a block would not be justified.

But the tide is changing to the benefit of the entertainments industries, and increasingly lawmakers are warming up to broader censorship tools. In Europe there are talks to adopt a China-like firewall to block websites deemed ‘inappropriate,’ and in the US blocking ‘illicit’ websites will be simplified if the PROTECT IP Act is passed.

Although The Pirate Bay team has weathered worse storms, they are worried about said proposals and told its users earlier this month that “The Battle of Internets is About to Begin.”

Source: Music Industry Sues ISP to Censor The Pirate Bay

To this end, Finland’s Government has drafted changes to both the country’s copyright and electronic data protection laws with the aim of reducing what it terms the “unlawful distribution of creative content.”

The legislation, which was presented to parliament last Friday, proposes an alternative to expensive court proceedings initiated by copyright holders.

After infringers are tracked on file-sharing networks by copyright holders, allegations of infringement will be sent to Internet service providers who will then be required to forward them to the appropriate subscriber.

“The proposed approach is taken to guarantee that the subscriber’s identity data stays with the Internet service provider and is not disclosed to the copyright holder,” Government Minister Jorma Walden said in a statement.

At this stage, the exact text of the letters has not been revealed, but it is thought there will be no outright allegations of wrongdoing.

It is hoped that this approach to dealing with infringements will reduce the need for police involvement in simple file-sharing cases and the subsequent load on the courts.

The bill, which is a continuation of negotiations started in 2008 to promote e-commerce and content creation, is expected to come into force during spring 2011.

Source: File-Sharers To Receive Warning Letters, But No 3 Strikes

In common with many other countries around the world, Finland also has to deal with an active pro-copyright lobby that wants the local Government to crack down on widespread Internet piracy. According to Elisa and Sonera, two of the country’s largest ISPs, the total number of file-sharers in Finland lies well above 50 percent.

To deal with this piracy problem the Finnish Government has now drafted new legislation that would require Internet providers to send warning letters to those who are suspected of illicit downloading. In this scenario, ISPs would be notified of possible infringements by investigation outfits hired by the entertainment industries.

The legislation is similar to that of other countries in Europe, such as the UK and France. The only difference is that the warning letters in Finland will have no consequences at all. They merely serve as an educational message, or a threat, depending on how one interprets the letters.

Because of this lack of enforcement power the local anti-piracy outfit is not too excited about the Government’s plans.

“The problem is that there are no repercussions with this model. A person could get ten letters about illegally sharing material online, and that’s it. This model is ineffective in our opinion,” said Antti Kotilainen, the director of the Anti-piracy Centre.

Finnish Pirate Party chairman Pasi Palmulehto, who generally disagrees with his counterpart at the Anti-piracy Centre, doesn’t think much of the proposal either, but for different reasons.

“This whole warning letter proposal is a clear sign of how far our government is on copyright organizations’ leash. The proposed law itself has no function at all. One can receive 50 warning letters without any consequences,” Pasi Palmulehto told TorrentFreak.

According to The Pirate Party chairman the letters would violate the privacy of Internet users as it encourages private organizations to spy on Internet subscribers. Besides that, the Pirate Party sees the proposal as a waste of money where, ironically, the entertainment industry will cut into their own profits since they have to pay the companies that will have to spy on Internet users.

“Most likely the warning letters themselves will have no effect on most Internet users, but those who actually get scared will probably start using secure and proxy/vpn connections,” Pasi Palmulehto said. According to the Pirate Party chairman there is only one way to deal with Internet piracy.

“There is no need for alternatives to the warning letter process. It is a complete fail and the public is better off without it. The only real alternative is also a long term improvement and that is to legalize non-profit file-sharing,” he said.

Despite the criticism from opposing sides, the proposal will be voted on in the Finnish Parliament in the near future. If it passes it could be signed into law before the and of the year.

Source: Finnish ISPs to Warn Pirating Customers

Several admins of the site had their computers seized during the raid and some of them were even jailed for a night. Although the site never returned, the legal proceedings against the people involved would carry on for several years, becoming the largest BitTorrent-related case in terms of the number of people involved.

In separate cases both individual users and administrators of the site were charged with copyright related offenses. The prosecutor chose 24 users who had posted both torrents and shared high volumes of data, claiming criminal copyright infringement. All except one were found guilt and had to pay several thousand euros in damages and fines.

In addition to the users, 32 admins of the site were also charged. The term admin was used loosely here since some were merely moderators of the forums. Of the 32 ‘admins’, 21 were eventually convicted in the District Court. These convictions ranged from assisting copyright infringement to direct copyright infringement.

What followed were several appeals, with the cases of some of the defendants going all the way to the Supreme Court on claims that they were not guilty.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court found seven of the Finreactor admins guilty of assisting in copyright infringement. The defendants claimed that they should be found not guilty because Finractor’s users were responsible for sharing the files. The Court disagreed arguing that their role in the Finreactor network, which allowed others to share copyrighted works, was essential.

The Supreme Court sentenced the seven admins to pay 680,000 euros in damages, which will be shared among a few dozen copyright holders who joined the case. This sentence is significantly higher than the 420,000 euro fine which was handed out to the admins by the Court of Appeal in 2008.

The verdict sets a dangerous precedent according to the Finnish Pirate Party. It means that operators of web-portals could be held responsible for what their users do, which puts the people behind thousands of other sites, including YouTube, at risk.

“The Finreactor verdict is a disturbing interpretation of the liability of service providers for what users are doing, and it contradicts the principle that the postman is not responsible for the package he or she delivers,” said Pirate Party chairman Pasi Palmulehto. “The Supreme Court’s decision makes it very unclear what kind of services can be developed and when operators are responsible for what users are doing.”

The Supreme Court decision against the Finreactor admins came one day before Finland made a broadband connection a fundamental right of its citizens. As of today, every Fin has the right to at least a 1 Mbps Internet connection, one that they should use wisely.

Source: Finnish BitTorrent Admins Receive 680,000 Euro Fine

A new survey, conducted by the The National Research Institute of Legal Policy, looked into the unlawful behavior of Finnish 9th grade youngsters, including their illicit downloading habits. Among other things, the results show that 6% of the 15 year olds smoke marijuana or hash, 11% has participated in a fight and 15% admits they have stolen something from their school.

Unsurprisingly, the most common type of illegal behavior among the group is (illegal) downloading. An overwhelming majority of the surveyed kids (69%) admitted that they have downloaded copyrighted material in the past year. Even more so, 29% reported that they use filesharing applications to download music and movies illegally, every day. However, it is worth pointing out that while bullying, stealing and vandalism might be considered a crime and therefore warrant the attention of the police, personal-use file-sharing is a civil infringement, and does not.

The Finnish news article which reported on the survey resulted in an massive response from readers. A spokesperson from the Finnish pro-piracy group Piraattiliitto told TorrentFreak: “There is an almost unanimous call from the readers to legalize private filesharing. The overwhelming change in the national opinion from anti-piracy to pro-piracy is somewhat surprising, even for us at Piraattiliitto.”

The Finnish copyright lobby on the other hand, says it is ‘alarmed’ at the outcome of the survey. It wants to see new laws that would allow copyright holders to force ISPs to pass their threatening emails to the alleged filesharing customers. The consensus among the readers, however, seems to be that, instead of turning millions of people (including 69% of 15 year-old kids in Finland) into law-breakers, copyright laws should be changed to allow casual piracy.

Source: Piracy Rampant Among Finnish Youth

According to a Piraattiliitto report, the Copyright Information and Anti-piracy Centre (CIAPC) in Finland has used a copyright law which came into force January 1st 2006, to have a file-sharer disconnected from the Internet. However, this drastic action – which is thought to be the first anti-piracy related disconnection in Europe – comes with additional controversy. This wasn’t some kid sharing files from his bedroom on a residential connection, this was a government employee using a government internet connection to share music videos.

In true disproportionate anti-piracy style, this fact didn’t stop CIAPC from getting the government connection severed via the Ahvenanmaan District Court. According to CIAPC the connection, operated by the ISP Ã…lands Datakommunikation, was being used by the Provincial Government of Ã…land. It is unclear if this action caused any disruption to legitimate government business but it’s probably safe to say that it didn’t help it in any way.

Ã…land Executive Niklas Karlman said of the incident: “As an employer, we must ensure that employees do not engage in illegal activities. We are taking steps to raise awareness among our employees. We are aware of this threat to our security.”

According to the report, the Finnish copyright lobby ‘sneaked’ the disconnection sanction into copyright law without the legislators hearing the opinions of any independent legal or technical experts. The process has been harshly criticized by Electronic Frontier Finland (EFFI). EFFI vice chairman Ville Oksanen characterizes the legislation process “one of the dirtiest he has ever seen”.

The action also goes directly against the European Parliament who, this April, condemned state plans to authorize the disconnection of suspected file-sharers from the Internet. European Parliament said that disconnecting petty file-sharers would be “conflicting with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness”.

It seems that even government activity can be disrupted these days in the name of copyright enforcement.

Source: First European Anti-Piracy Disconnection: The Finnish Government

The ‘Social Center Elimäenkatu 15′ isn’t an official social gathering place – it’s a squat, a disused building into which the organizers wish to breathe new life by showing the latest blockbuster movies, free of charge to all who attend. August 8 2007 saw the screening of ‘Transformers’ at 19:00 followed by ‘The Simpsons Movie’.

At the Elimäenkatu 15 social center they aren’t just showing movies – in the last week there has been a silkscreen printing workshop, a presentation on Korean Left-Wing movements, their own ‘Fight Club’ which teaches self defense skills and even a full beach party – minus the beach of course.

Around 20 people squeezed into the ‘Pirate Cinema’ (or Occupied Autonomous Center as the organizers refer to it) on August 15 when they were offered the chance to watch more free movies, specifically Planet Terror and the latest Die Hard movie. However after what was presumably a good night, the viewers left the social center only to be confronted by police.

Finland’s Copyright Information and Anti-piracy Centre (CIAPC) had prompted the police to investigate the ‘Pirate Cinema’. As the organizers tried to leave, their car was prevented from doing so by three police cars. Officers handcuffed and detained two people from the car and arrested one of the organizers along with a laptop computer used to play the movies. According to reports, although the viewers aren’t in any trouble, the organizers are facing charges of breaking copyright law. The driver of the car was later released.

When speaking with Helsingin Sanomat an organizer said: “It is ridiculous that under the new copyright law, a large number of people are criminals”, adding that copyright legislation only benefits large companies and big stars: “Copyrights do not solve the livelihood of culture workers, and the enforcement of piracy laws will not promote it”

A statement on the organizers site said: “The idea of Pirate Cinema has been to show movies for free for everybody. Everybody don’t afford to go see movies in the movie theatres. At the same time Pirate Cinema has been a statement for the right to share files. P2P filesharing is a mass movement: millions of people are sharing files everyday in P2P networks, and no kind of repression will ever stop this.”

Antti Kotilainen, Executive Director of anti-piracy group CIAPC commented: “We are pleased that officials have taken action. They say that they are anarchists, fighting against big movie moguls. Then the only recreation that they have is to show movies produced by the companies that they despise so much.”

The people at Projekti Sosiaalikeskus (the organizers) are in defiant mood, as is clear from a posting to their site: “True pirates never die! Despite recent repression Pirate Cinema will continue, just wait a bit for updates. We won’t back off or give up. Stay tuned!”

According to the site, the next movie screening is set for August 22.

Thanks to Xtacy for the translation

Source: Police Target ‘Pirate Cinema’ Fuelled by Downloaded Movies