The IFPI is stepping up its war on copyright infringement by suing the current administrators of The Pirate Bay, the Internet's most famous torrent site. The lawsuit, filed in the Helsinki District Court, demands that the operators of TPB stop facilitating the unauthorized distribution of music and pay compensation to rightsholders. For good measure, IFPI is demanding that two more local ISPs block the site.

Another day, yet another file-sharing infringement lawsuit against the operators of The Pirate Bay, the self-styled “world’s most resilient torrent site”.

IFPI, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, with support from Finnish anti-piracy group Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Center (CIAPC), filed a lawsuit yesterday in the Helsinki District Court against the administrators of The Pirate Bay.

The admins, whoever and wherever they may be, are ordered to stop facilitating the unauthorized distribution of music and pay compensation to IFPI and CIAPC-affiliated rightsholders for the damages they have allegedly caused through their website.

This latest action follows an October decision from the Helsinki District Court which ordered Finnish ISP Elisa to block subscriber access to The Pirate Bay or face fines. But while Elisa takes that decision to the Court of Appeal, IFPI is piling the pressure onto other Internet service providers.

Yesterday the music industry group filed applications in Helsinki and Vantaa to force two further ISPs, Sonera and DNA, to block their customers from accessing TPB. According to IFPI, when combined the subscribers of all three ISPs make up 80% of the total broadband market in Finland.

“This type of inhibition has yielded good results, eg in Italy, where the The Pirate Bay’s popularity has decreased significantly,” said CIAPC’s Executive Director, Antti Kotilainen.

Lauri Rechardt, chief executive of IFPI Finland, said the purpose of this latest action is to hit the “underground economy” and support the increasing uptake of authorized services.