The Pirate Bay remains blocked in Finland

By EDRi · November 7, 2012

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Deutsch: [„The Pirate Bay“ bleibt in Finnland weiterhin gesperrt | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_10.21_The_Pirate_Bay_bleibt_in_Finnland_weiterhin_gesperrt?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20121107]

The Pirate Bay (TPB) remains blocked in Finland as the Finnish Supreme
Court has rejected ISP Elisa’s request to hear its appeal in the case
filed by the Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Center (CIAPC) in May
2011.

In the respective case, in October 2011, the Helsinki District Court
ordered Elisa to block the domain names and IP-addresses of TPB, thus
forcing the ISP to censor the torrent site, under the threat of 100 000
Euro/day fines for non-compliance. Elisa ISP complained, describing the
censorship strategy as “flawed”, and appealed the decision. In June
2012, the Court of Appeal rejected the ISP’s application upholding the
ruling from October 2011 after which Elisa announced that they would
take the case to the Supreme Court. But now, the case is closed with the
decision of the Supreme Court of not hearing the case.

Elisa has expressed its disappointment believing that the case was
difficult from the juridical standpoint and “legislative measures are
required to clarify the situation, where the officials solve the issue
of how to reconcile copyright law and users’ right to communication,” as
Elisa Business Director Henri Korpi stated who added: “More importantly,
however, is that all the players should focus on measures that can truly
and effectively reduce piracy. This requires content to be distributed
on the web at a reasonable price and at the same time as other
distribution channels.”

TPB is currently being blocked in several European countries such as
Italy, UK, the Netherlands and Finland. Internet rights groups are
worried by the increase in the number of countries banning The Pirate
Bay and other torrent sites.

The success of such blocking measures is far from being proven as many
ISPs claim that Internet users continue to access banned websites on
alternative services or different routes.

Supreme Court Denies ISP Permission To Appeal Pirate Bay Blockade
(29.10.2012)
http://torrentfreak.com/supreme-court-denies-isp-permission-to-appeal-pirate-bay-blockade-121029/

Pirate Bay appeal is rejected by Finnish supreme court (30.10.2012)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20137033

EDRi-gram: Finnish ISP started blocking The Pirate Bay (18.01.2012)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.1/finnish-isp-blocks-piratebay