Pirate Bay Faces Ban by European Union

Is The Pirate Bay's galleon under siege by the European Union?

According to TorrentFreak, the European Union may bring the ban hammer down on the infamous Swedish torrent tracker at some point in the near future. The move would be the cornerstone in the governing body's new initiative against media piracy.

The new report has two primary goals. First, it wants to place more liability and responsibility on Internet service providers (ISPs). So, if one ISP sees a consistent amount of piracy-related traffic and does nothing to hinder or cease such traffic, they could be held responsible by the EU. In order to avoid such unpleasantries, the second major goal is for all copyrighted material not being used with permission to be completely filtered out. This is similar to what U.S. organizations like the MPAA and RIAA want on our side of the pond.

To clarify, all of the above is contained in a "tabled non-legislative report", according to the European Parliament's website. So, in layman's terms, it's closer to being "advice" right now than a fully-fledged bill. the report was penned by one Manuel Medina Ortega, who TF pegs as a "Spanish Socialist". Upon further review, Ortega is indeed part of the Socialist Party, as is stated by his official EuroParl bio.

The report makes specific mention of The Pirate Bay, and even urges action against the tracker by individual member nations.According to parts 32 and 33 of a new Motion for a European Parliament Resolution, "32. Approves the action of various national judicial systems against internet sites that illegally disseminate works on line (e.g. ‘The Pirate Bay’); 33. Wishes the activities of such sites to be suspended by the judicial authorities in the Member States." So, while a EU-wide amendment would be preferred, the powers behind the report are pushing for individual countries to take action against torrent trackers.

While we have to wait and see where this report goes, the European Parliament has already made it stance clear. While President Sarkozy of the European Council is in favor of such measures and the "three-strikes" policy, 88% of the European Parliament voted for an amendment that would protect the rights of Internet users in such piracy cases. The "three strikes" policy refers to anti-piracy groups giving ISPs evidence that its users are downloading copyrighted content, which the ISP then uses as grounds to disconnect the user. This sort of partnership infringes on the rights of Internet users, according to the majority of Parliament.

While the MPAA, RIAA, and ISPs like Comcast have anti-piracy/anti-P2P on lockdown in the U.S., any sort of motion in the EU may assist in setting some sort of global precedent. Tom's Hardware will keep you updated on the report and if it finds its way into some sort of full-fledged parliament amendment.

The amended draft report can be found in its entirety here (note: PDF reader required).