Another Court Orders ISPs to Block The Pirate Bay

The assault on The Pirate Bay continues with five Dutch Internet Service Providers (ISPs) ordered by The Court of The Hague to block all access to the file-sharing site.

The ruling comes only a week after a number of British ISPs were given a similar order by the UK High Court.

UK Internet providers Everything Everywhere, O2, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media were told last week to block subscribers from accessing The Pirate Bay.

The new ruling was motivated by the site's prolonged activity in providing users with access to content that, in some cases, violates copyright law.

Supporters Circumvent Court-Ordered Block

The court order sparked outrage in the UK. The country's Pirate Party vowed to help The Pirate Bay fans circumvent the mandated ISP efforts to isolate that popular website.

According to recent reports, the proxy server established by the UK Pirate Party to allow access to the Swedish file-sharing site still remains in operation.

Following a complaint by Brein, an anti-piracy organization, the new court order from The Court of The Hague will force five Dutch ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay.

However, the court went beyond mere technical blocking of the site by ordering Holland's Pirate Party to stop publicizing methods that people can use to get around these kinds of court-ordered blocks.

Is This the End of the "Free Internet"?

On its homepage, the Dutch Pirate Party called the new court order "a slap in the face for the free Internet," then added: "The judge decided to give the Netherlands another nudge on the gliding scale of censorship." (Source: bbc.com)

Although it's likely large numbers of people will make continued efforts to skirt the ban, reports indicate that anyone caught doing so could face a fine of up to 250,000 Euros. (Source: pcmag.com)

Defenders of The Pirate Bay continue to question such court orders to block access to the site, suggesting that they constitute one more step towards full-blown government censorship of the Internet.

"More and more bits of the Internet have to be censored because they might be used to get access to 'infringing' sites, until eventually most of the Internet will be unreachable," the Dutch Pirate Party said. (Source: bbc.com)