Consequently the court ruled that access to The Pirate Bay had to be blocked. Tele2 appealed this decision, but lost again two weeks ago.

The court case was initiated by the IFPI – the infamous anti-piracy organization that represents the recording industry. The IFPI later tried to use the “landmark decision” to force Swedish ISPs to do the same, but failed. In fact, it seems that filtering traffic to The Pirate Bay is actually illegal according to European law.

The fight is not over yet though. Since this case could have huge implications for other ISPs and websites, Tele2 has announced that it will take it all the way to the Supreme Court. Fortunately for them, they won’t be alone either. They are backed by the telecommunications industry association. Jens Ottosen, president of the association told Computerworld that, if this decision is upheld, Danish ISPs might be forced to block other sites as well.

In a response, Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde told TorrentFreak: “We’re confident that Tele2 will win in the Supreme Court, when they [the court] really dig into the technology and try to understand the whole concept. It’s important for net neutrality and it’s also important for file sharers in Denmark to have this tried (and won).”

When the appeal is successful, The Pirate Bay will claim damages from IFPI. “I hope that they [Tele2] win so we can demand retribution from IFPI.” Peter said. “As I’ve stated earlier we would like them to have to pay damages to us. In that case we would help set up a fund for Danish aspiring musicians that in turn would release music using a Creative Commons license.”

The Supreme Court still has to accept the appeal before the case can go on. Despite the outcome, blocking The Pirate Bay didn’t have the effect that the IFPI was hoping for. On the contrary, traffic from Denmark went up, instead of down. However, this case is about more than just The Pirate Bay, it is about censoring the Internet.

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

At the time, The Pirate Bay co-founder Brokep told TorrentFreak: “I hope the torrent community understands what this will do to Danish people. It will also act as a very bad precedent for the European Union, and I hope everybody will fight this.”

In February, a Danish court sided with IFPI and ruled that Tele2 had assisted in copyright infringement because they give their customers access to The Pirate Bay, thereby copying copyrighted material in their routers.

The decision heated the debate on ISPs filtering the Internet, not least because it goes against European law, which states that ISPs are not responsible for the traffic their users generate. Nonetheless, IFPI booked an initial success in forcing Tele2 to block the site on a DNS level.

However, at this stage, all was not lost. Traffic to the site only increased as a result of the publicity generated by the block, and the decision was subject to a Tele2 appeal. The Pirate Bay also promised that if Tele2 subsequently won, they would claim compensation and use the money to fund aspiring Danish artists who make music and release it for free.

The result of the appeal was announced just a short time ago, and it is not good news for the Swedish tracker, Tele2, and potentially other ISPs who desperately do not want to become unpaid ‘Internet policemen’. The High Court upheld the decision to force Tele2 to continue the DNS level block on The Pirate Bay, so that its customers cannot access the site.

This isn’t the first time a Danish ISP has been ordered to censor the Internet. In December 2006 a court ruled against Tele2 in a similar case, ordering the ISP to block access to Allofmp3.com. According to the ruling, Tele2 was willingly infringing copyright if their customers use AllofMP3 to download music.

At the time of the initial decision in February, the IFPI threatened that if it was successful and Tele2 lost its appeal, it would take further steps to force other ISPs to start blocking The Pirate Bay too. Jesper Bay, the head of the Danish IFPI told Computer World today that he expects other ISPs to follow suit, and block access to The Pirate Bay as well.

Whether or not Tele2 will appeal the decision at the Supreme Court is not known yet. More on this pivotal breaking news as we get it.

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

Shocking, yes. But what if there were two similar events, on subsequent days?

Today it has been revealed by Computerworld that the expert witness – the ONLY expert witness – in the Danish Pirate Bay blocking case, was previously employed by the IFPI, a fact revealed through his LinkedIn social networking page.

Kristian Lakkegaard is now working for DtecNet Software, an anti-piracy company. DtecNet Software originally stems from Antipiratgruppen (Danish Anti-Piracy outfit) and Johan Schlüter Law Firm, where several of the partners are co-owners of the internationally successful firm.

Kristian Lakkegaard had also been employed for two years at Johan Schlüter Law Firm, which has the IFPI as a client, something which many find shocking, like Morten Agervig Helles who represented Tele2, the ISP ordered to block The Pirate Bay in Denmark. “I couldn’t in my wildest dreams believe that they would use a witness that had previously been employed by them” he said.

The court in Frederiksberg probably had no knowledge of that fact when it ordered Tele2 to block The Pirate Bay in February this year, however that doesn’t change the fact that Lakkegaard had a conflict of interests. Right now, the court doesn’t wish to comment on this situation.

According to Lars Bo Langsted who is a lawyer and faculty-leader at Aalborg University, witnesses must be objective. He says that there is a difference between a representative for one of the sides in a trial and an objective witness. “If you give testimony as an objective professional and not as a representative of one of the parts in the trial, then you give testimony as an independent expert. In relation to that, it is of course very important that it is clear weather the person in question is capable of that or not.”

In the interests of transparency, this information about previous employment should have been known to the court but it is nowhere to be found in the court documents. Morten Agervig Helles, who represented Tele2 says this is also news to him: “I didn’t know that. No one told me. Neither that he had interests in the case nor that he had been employed.”

Kristian Lakkegaard said that he only appeared in the courtroom for very limited time: “I do not remember how exactly it went, but normally the judge or a clerk asks who I am, what my background is, my employment and so on. And then I answer those questions.”

He says that because of his expertise he has been called as an witness in similar cases by Johan Schlüter Lawfirm. “I wasn’t in the courtroom during the whole hearing,” he said “and I cant remember exactly which questions they asked. But this is not something I want to try to hide or have tried to hide.”

Thanks to Peter_Pan

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