With the official site inaccessible via direct means, many Pirate Bay users switched over to proxy services. With millions of visitors a month, the proxy of the UK Pirate Party soon became one of the most-visited websites in the region.

Music industry group BPI objected to this alternative route to The Pirate Bay and asked the Pirate Party to take down their proxy service. When it became clear the Pirates had no intention of doing so, the BPI decided to send its lawyers after six individual party members last week.

This transformed the nature of the dispute and the stakes involved. The party members in question were not just fighting for their ideals anymore but also their personal belongings, facing potential personal bankruptcy through a grinding and expensive legal battle.

While it initially appeared that the Pirate Party was determined to keep their proxy online and fight the issue in court, they unexpectedly pulled the service offline Monday evening. Initially the site wasn’t loading at all but it currently redirects to a page announcing that more information will be released later.

TorrentFreak has been in touch with several key people in the party since Monday evening, but all said they were instructed not to talk by their solicitors. Initially we were told that a statement would be made public on Tuesday, but the party remained silent.

Considering the legal pressure applied by the music industry last week, it’s safe to assume that the sudden shutdown is related to the looming legal dispute. At this point it seems doubtful that the Pirate Party will fight the issue in court as the legal fundraiser campaign has also been taken offline.

We suspect that the solicitors of both the BPI and the Pirate Party are currently discussing options for resolving the dispute in a peaceful manner.

The recent run-in with the music industry over the Pirate Bay proxy might not be the first. Several weeks ago TorrentFreak noticed that the UK Pirate Party changed its robots.txt file to contain instructions to Google not to index the site. The Pirate Party did not respond to our inquiries on this issue, but it’s not unlikely that the changes were made because rightsholders were overloading the party with takedown requests.

When more information comes in from the UK Pirate Party we will update this article accordingly. The BPI was also asked for a comment on the recent developments but we have yet to hear back from them.

Meanwhile, former users of the Pirate Party’s proxy are moving on to one of the many alternatives that remain online.

Update: BPI confirmed that the Pirate Party proxy will remain offline. More information here.

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

In a matter of weeks the proxy became one of the most popular sites in the UK, and at the time of writing it’s listed among the 150 most-visited websites in the region.

The music industry, which fought an expensive legal battle to have the blockade put in place, is understandably frustrated with the Pirate Party’s service. Last week the BPI took action and asked the UK Pirate Party to take its proxy service offline.

No “threats” were made at the time, but this changed when the Pirates indicated that the proxy would remain available.

A music industry source told TorrentFreak that the BPI intends to follow-up their request with legal action, and just before the weekend the Pirate Party received word that they would be hearing from BPI’s lawyers.

“Geoff Taylor of the BPI has written to me to say we should expect a letter from their solicitors,” UK Pirate Party leader Loz Kaye told TorrentFreak.

Thus far, however, the Pirates have yet to receive the legal paperwork.

“As of Saturday, if paperwork has been filed then we are unaware of it. If the BPI choose to file a lawsuit then we will deal with that as we become aware of it. We would have thought they would have preferred to talk to us first, but it is their choice as to what they do,” Kaye says.

The threat of legal action is very real and could turn into a financial disaster, but the UK Pirate Party will do everything in its power to keep the proxy online. According to Kaye it is by no means clear that allowing access to The Pirate Bay is against the law.

“Obviously our position is clear, we have done nothing wrong, we oppose site blocking and think that the whole area is one that requires clarification through legislation. After all the Pirate Bay is not blocked by all ISPs, it is available via any number of services and we were running our proxy before it became blocked in the UK,” Kaye says.

In addition, the party highlights the collateral damage of these blocks, as we saw with the Promo Bay last week.

“Blocks now seem to have been used against services like Promo Bay, with the BPI being given significant power on deciding what they think should and shouldn’t be blocked. I would add that up until last week we had not been contacted by any party to ask us to take it down.”

While the Pirate Party may have the spirit to fight, it doesn’t quite have sufficient funds to do so. The Pirates don’t have the financial support of the major music labels, like the BPI, but rely on contributions from the public instead.

If this becomes a financial arms race, The Pirate Party is poised to lose and they are currently running a fundraiser to prevent this from happening.

Despite being up against a billion pound industry, Pirate Party leader Loz Kays says he and his fellow members will fight for their principles.

“It is clear that we are facing a significant threat, and we will have to fight it. And fight it well, not just for the sake of the Pirate Party, but because of the principles at stake. I have always believed that it is not just enough to have principles, you need to act on them too, even if it gets difficult.”

“I joined the Pirate Party because I passionately believe these are political issues. For every new person who starts to ask questions about digital rights, that’s a win. For every new person who stands up and gets involved, that’s a victory,” Kaye concludes.

Previously copyright holders successfully took the proxy site of the Dutch Pirate Party offline. The court forbid the Pirates from hosting or even linking to Pirate Bay proxies. The Dutch Pirate Party announced that they would appeal the verdict, but are still collecting funds to do so.

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