Danish supreme court upholds injunction to block the Pirate Bay

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Deutsch: [Oberster Dänischer Gerichtshof bestätigt einstweilige Verfügung zur Sperre von Pirate Bay | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1968]

The Danish suppreme court took its decision on 27 May 2010 on the recourse
to the decision issued by the High Court (In Danish: landsretten) November
2008. The latter was the in fact the appeal to February 2008 Bailiff court
(In Danisg: fogedret) ruling, which obliged Tele2 (which was later taken
over by Telenor) to block thepiratebay.org.

The supreme court only ruled that it was correct to issue the injunction and
that the Tele2/Telenor interpreted the injunction correctly. The supreme
court did agree with Telenor that DNS-blocking is sufficient to fulfill the
injunction, considering costs and proportionality. If IFPI wants
Deep Packet Inspection, they have to get a new injunction.

The decision of the supreme court only deals with the proportionality of
economic burdens, not with freedom of speech. Which is normal, because it
was Tele2/Telenor that appealed the injunction and their concern is only an
economical one.

In its declaration, Telenor reffers to cost and to a 2006 Contest report
listing four alternative methods for blocking. Regarding DNS blocking it
says:

“The cost of DNS blocking is a few million DKK annually. The solution is
already implemented in connection with the so-called child-porn-filter,
and the amount is not discussed in detail because the administration
costs depend on the number of webpages that have to be blocked and the
level of activity on the blocked pages.”

Therefore, Telenor says that they do not want to block access. But if they
have to do it, DNS-blocking is the option that will not be too expensive
considering that all ISPs implemented voluntarily the so-called
child-porn-filter .

What happens now?
IFPI has to file the justification case. Telenor could fight it again, but
they should consider that the High Court and the Supreme court spent two
years confirming the injunction.

Nicholai Kramer Pfeiffer, head of legal affairs of Telenor, tells
Computerworld that telecommunication companies have no motivation to use
resources on an issue that is between rightsholders and people accused of
infringing copyright. He predicts, that in the future, injunction cases on
blocking ISPs will not even show up in court. He adds: “Guess what that will
do to the rule of law?”

Pfeiffer told EDRi-gram that the Danish ISPs are currently discussing how to
handle the justification case, and that he expects that they would put up a
fight in case the rightsholders would seek an injunction to force the ISPs
to use other means of blocking, such as deep packet inspection.

It seems that, once the ISPs are forced to introduce access blocking, they
do not care what they are forced to block.

Danish Supreme Court case (only in Danish, 27.05.2010)
http://www.domstol.dk/hojesteret/Documents/Domme/153-09.pdf

Supreme Court confirms closure of The Pirate Bay (only in Danish,
27.05.2010)
http://www.computerworld.dk/art/56336

EDRi-gram: PirateBay – blocked in Denmark (13.02.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.3/piratebay-denmark

(Contribution by Niels Elgaard Larsen – EDRi-member IT-POL Denmark )