For You Aren't A Pirate

Sweden's infamous The Pirate Bay website is off-line after the Swedish government threatened to fine the file-sharing site's internet provider.

Stockholm’s district court on Monday ordered Black Internet to stop providing bandwidth to The Pirate Bay or face a fine of 500,000 kronor (70,000 dollars, 50,000 euros).

“We received the decision about the fine shortly after lunch and shut down the capacity just before 3:00 pm,” Black Internet’s chief executive Victor Moeller told the online edition of the Dagens Nyheter newspaper.

“There are laws and rules in society and they should be respected,” he said.

AFP’s attempts to access the website on Tuesday were unsuccessful.

A Swedish court in April found the four men behind The Pirate Bay guilty of promoting copyright infringement by running the site, sentencing them to a year in prison.

They were also ordered to pay damages of 30 million kronor (2.72 million euros, 3.56 million dollars) to the movie and recording industry.

The four have appealed the verdict, and — prior to Monday — the site remained in operation.

However, the movie industry in July again sued The Pirate Bay over 100 movies and television series, demanding that the three men who run the site (the fourth is their financier) and Black Internet be prevented from operating the site.

The Stockholm court ruled on Monday that Black Internet had to pull The Pirate Bay off the web until the latest lawsuit has been resolved, or pay the fine, Dagens Nyheter said.

And for now, the site is down. Somehow, I don't think it's gone forever. Things on the internet have this habit of not dying.

On the other hand, it was smart of Swedish officials to go after The Pirate Bay's internet provider. On the gripping hand (my nerd flag is showing again), it sets a nasty precedent for going after internet providers rather than content providers.