Netherlands court orders end to Pirate Bay ban

A Dutch court has told local internet service providers they can restore access to The Pirate Bay.

The ISPs had been ordered in 2011 to stop internet addresses linked to the file-sharing site working.

But the Hague Appeals Court has reversed the decision on the basis it had proved "ineffective" at reducing copyright infringement.

Anti-piracy group Brein now faces having to pay 400,000 euros ($547,000; £330,000) of the ISPs' legal costs.

It has said it may lodge a further appeal with the country's Supreme Court.

One UK-based ISP said it was studying the ruling to see if there were any implications for a similar block imposed by the High Court.

"We will look carefully at what this means for the UK, but we do remain beholden to the UK courts," said Gareth Mead, head of media relations at Virgin Media.

The Dutch ruling marks a victory for Ziggo and XS4All - two local ISPs who had argued that the measure denied their subscribers free access to information.

The Pirate Bay does not host copyright-infringing content itself, but rather provides lists of links - many of which do lead to pirated films, TV shows, music and books.

Brein had initially tried to make The Pirate Bay itself remove such links. After failing to do so, it had convinced the Dutch courts to block users' access instead.

But the appeals court heard that web users were circumventing the ban by either finding alternative ways to access the site - such as using a VPN (virtual private network) to mask their location - or by using other file-sharing services.

Although there was evidence that Dutch traffic to The Pirate Bay had declined, the amount of torrenting - the way in which computer users share resources to speed up downloads - had not.

:story: BBC News