The Pirate Bay is an online index of digital content of mostly entertainment media, founded in 2003, where visitors can search, download and contribute links and torrent files. (Photo : Facebook/Pirate Bay)
Even as The Pirate Bay remains as one of the most resilient torrent site on the planet, there is an impending risk of countering anti-piracy authorities in future. The latest developments in the legal world are a pointer. Filed cases against the site are increasing and more complainants are stepping in.
According to Torrent Freak, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has just heard a case involving The Pirate Bay, a pair of local ISPs, and Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN. The main bone of contention has been whether the famous torrent site should be blocked or not.
Back in 2014, The Hague Court handed down its verdict on a long-running case that had previously forced two Dutch ISPs, XS4ALL and Ziggo, to block The Pirate Bay. The case had been filed by a local anti-piracy outfit BREIN, which at the time was facing a threat of defeat when the court ruled that the blockade restricted entrepreneurial freedoms.
Consequently, The Pirate Bay was unblocked in the Netherlands. But BREIN was not yet done with the torrent site. The group pressed on by taking the case to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court, in turn, acting on advice from the Advocate General, postponed its decision in November 2015. It referred the key questions of the hearing to the ECJ.
They included "whether the owner of a website communicates copyrighted content to the public when it links and indexes, but does not host the content and whether The Pirate Bay communicates infringing content to the public. In line with these questions, ECJ was requested to decide whether The Pirate Bay could be blocked for facilitating infringement, according to De Rechtspraak.
The court found out that when an individual ought to have known that a certain hyperlink provides access to illegally published content, the provision of that particular link constitutes communication to the public. If the works have been published illegally, that too is a communication to the public.
As a result, BREIN believes that such parameters can be used against The Pirate Bay. However, another argument from Ziggo and XZ4ALL claims that The Pirate Bay facilitates infringements but does not infringe itself.
As BREIN continues to fight The Pirate Bay, it is not the only group against the site. Other authorities like The European Commission, Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) are also under its neck.
Therefore, users of The Pirate Bay have a reason to worry. Watch the video below, demonstrating that piracy amounts to crime:
