Danish ISP shuts access to file-sharing Pirate Bay
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - A Danish court has ordered Denmark-based Internet service provider Tele2 to shut down its customers' access to the popular file-sharing site Pirate Bay, Danish IT magazine Computerworld reported on Monday.
Computerworld said on its Web site that a court had ordered Denmark's Tele2 -- one of the Nordic country's largest Internet providers -- to close access to the site at the request of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).
On its Danish Web site, the IFPI said Frederiksberg county court had ordered an Internet provider to shut down its customers' access to The Pirate Bay.
"The provider had agreed to follow the order and it is expected that other Internet service providers will voluntarily follow the court order," the organization said.
Tele2 Denmark was bought last year by Norway's Telenor from Swedish telecoms operator Tele2 and has about a 4 percent market share of Denmark's roughly 2 million Internet subscriptions.
Tele2 and Telenor were not immediately available to comment, however, Tele2's regulatory director Nicholai Pfeiffer told Computerworld Tele2 would abide by the ruling.
Other large Danish Internet service providers said they would not immediately follow the order.
The restriction is another blow for the Internet-based music and film sharing site. Last week four men linked to Pirate Bay were charged by a Swedish prosecutor with conspiracy to break copyright law.
The site was created in 2003 by a Swedish anti-copyright group but was soon taken over by individuals. Through BitTorrent -- a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol -- it helps surfers swap often copyright-protected music, movie and game files.
The site says that since no copyrighted material is stored on Pirate Bay's servers and no exchange of files actually takes place there, it cannot be held responsible for what material is being exchanged.
In 2006, a Copenhagen court ordered Tele2 to shut its customers' access to AllOfMP3.com, a Russia-based online music site. The company followed the order, but the restrictions later proved easy to bypass for Danish users.
(Reporting by Kim McLaughlin)
