IFPI wins Danish block on Pirate Bay

Who should 'scape whipping?

The record industry's anti-piracy lobby has won a court victory to force Tele2 Denmark, a large ISP, to block access to the Swedish BitTorrent tracker site Pirate Bay.

Danish IT rag Computerworld reports that Tele2 has agreed to follow the order. The firm accounts for about four per cent of the country's broadband market, and is owned by the Norwegian telco Telenor.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said it expects other internet service providers will voluntarily follow suit. Other large Danish providers have said they will not immediately place a block on Pirate Bay, however.

The Tele2 block will be applied only at DNS level, so will be very easy to circumvent for technically-aware subscribers, or for Pirate Bay's administrators to offer the site via new domains. A similar Danish court order obtained by the record industry in 2006 to cut off the murky Russian music download site AllofMP3.com was quickly sidestepped by internet users.

Last week Swedish prosecutors brought criminal charges against four men involved in running Pirate Bay. The accused claim any convictions will have no effect on the operation of the site. ®