The Pirate Bay seems to be a never-ending controversy, as we have discussed here many times. The site has been hounded by the law all around the world, although it always seems to manage to survive. Now the service has achieved a major victory, at least in the Netherlands.
A three-judge panel in The Hague has ruled that the blocking of The Pirate Bay by ISPs is not legal. The case had been filed by two providers -- Ziggo and XS4ALL.
In its ruling the court cited a study by TNO that showed the blockade had little or no effect on piracy, serving only to drive users to other Torrent sites. It also stated that statistics showed that any copyright infringement taking place through images of CD and DVD covers (which led to the original court-ordered blocking) was simply not reaching enough customers to have an impact.
XS4ALL (seen watching the ruling in the above image) released a statement through its company blog. "Freedom of access to information is thus assured. That's good for Dutch citizens, good for the Internet and good for ISPs who continue to fulfill their important role [as] neutral".
The ruling affects only the two ISPs who filed the suit, and the blockade remains in place for all others in the nation. However, another ISP, Tele2, has also filed an appeal against the original ruling.
Its far too early to know if this will set any sort precedence that will lead to a complete lifting in the Netherlands or in other nations, such as the UK, that enforce this ISP censorship. For the moment, it is a minor triumph on a small stage.
via BetaNews http://feeds.betanews.com/~r/bn/~3/t6H2UbpcDzs/
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