Major labels to take a Swedish ISP to court in October

The major labels will take a Swedish ISP to court in October after it refused to block The Pirate Bay.

Swedish ISP Bredbandsbolaget said it would not roll over in a hearing last month with entertainment companies Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Nordisk Film and the Swedish Film Industry.

Included in court documents filed in November, the ISP maintained: “There are other legal means to stop infringement of rights, but there is no provision in Swedish law that forces an Internet provider to block its subscribers’ access to services and content.”

The ISP stated it would not monitor the communications of its subscribers and that its job is to deliver a broadband service, not to control or block specified content.

Torrentfreak reports that on February 20 a meeting was held in the Stockholm District Court where an agreement between the parties was sought. However in a quote published by Torrentfreak, the ISP’s business area manager Mats Lundquist has said it should not be held responsible.

“In the same way that the Post should not meddle in what people write in the letter or where people send letters,” said Lundquist. “We stick to our starting point that our customers have the right to freely communicate and share information over the internet.”

The October 23 trial is being touted as historic; legal representatives for the Swedish music and film sectors have recently been pursuing test case legal action to gain web-locks against The Pirate Bay, similar to the blocks already secured in the UK. Last month Swedish authorities confirmed the shuttering of Sweden's second-largest torrent siteTankafetast and the arrest of five unnamed individuals who were reportedly involved in the illegal distribution of copyrighted movies.

Australia is awaiting the implementation of its own digital piracy scheme to combat copyright infringers. A three-strikes warning scheme is a keystone proposal in a voluntary code developed by Australia’s ISPs and copyright holders to combat online piracy and illegal downloading of music, movies and TV shows.

The Copyright Notice Scheme code, set to go live on September 1, was published by the Communications Alliance, which represents the telecommunications sector.

TheInternational Federation of the Phonographic Industry(IFPI) will reportedly finance the case.