TorrentFreak

In a deliberately provocative move the Czech Pirate Party has launched not one but two movie download portals. The sites, which offer links but don’t host any infringing material themselves, are being launched to protest the plight of a high school student facing a 5 million euro damages claim for linking to copyright works.

Following an ultimatum set by AFACT, Australian ISPs have until the close of business today to comply with veiled threats from the big Hollywood studios to help them tackle online piracy, or else. As one ISP confirms it won’t respond to threats, another is trying to form a coalition to fend off the movie companies. Pirate Party Australia describes the moves by Hollywood as “extortion”.

A group of music labels currently taking action against The Pirate Bay in Finland have pulled off something anti-piracy groups in other countries have been dreaming of. Following file-sharing complaints filed earlier this year, a court has now issued orders for the ISPs of three subscribers to disconnect them from the Internet.

It’s been quite a busy month for the pirate parties around the world, so a recap of their activities wouldn’t go amiss, especially as with the hectic pace of news this month, many have been overlooked. News comes from Canada, the UK, Germany, Tunisia and New Zealand.

This morning German police confiscated the servers of the Pirate Party, currently the sixth largest political party in Germany. Details of the raid are still scarce, but initial information indicates that the raid was targeted at a service running on the Party’s servers. The timing is unfortunate with the Pirate Party participating in the upcoming election in Bremen this Sunday.

Following pressure from the US Government, Canada is preparing to ram through a revamped copyright bill that will have disastrous consequences for consumers. Michael Geist, prof. E-commerce Law in Ottawa, previously described the bill as “the most anti-consumer copyright bill in Canadian history.” When the new bill passes it will open the door for widespread [...]

Yesterday both the Swedish Pirate Party and The Pirate Bay disappeared from the Internet causing concern among their users. While they have both now returned, it appears that the Party downtime was caused by the unauthorized use of their servers “for commercial purposes”, something which is expressly forbidden.