Despite claims that freedom of expression is at stake, today a pair of ISPs have been ordered to block The Pirate Bay. Following a demand from Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN, the Court of The Hague ruled that Ziggo, the largest ISP in the Netherlands, and competitor XS4ALL have to block subscriber access to the world's most famous torrent site. XS4ALL say they are "bitterly disappointed", noting that fundamental rights have been traded for "commercial interests".

In 2010, Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN went to court to try and force Ziggo, the largest ISP in the Netherlands, to implement a DNS and IP address block of The Pirate Bay.

To help avoid a damaging legal precedent, Ziggo was joined in the case by rival ISP XS4ALL. Initially the partnership was successful. The Court of The Hague decided that blocking all customer access to The Pirate Bay was a step too far. BREIN, refusing to give in, launched a full trial.

During November last year that case was heard before the Court of The Hague. BREIN argued that it would be trivial for the ISPs to initiate a block of The Pirate Bay, while the ISPs stated that doing so could compromise the security of their networks, threaten freedom of expression, and would ultimately prove ineffective.

BREIN countered by insisting they have rights too – copyrights – and that the reason the ISPs don’t want to block TPB is because they profit by selling bandwidth to users so they can access it.

Today, the Court of the Hague delivered its verdict – and it’s victory for BREIN.

The Court noted that approximately 30% of Ziggo subscribers and 4.5% of XS4ALL subscribers use The Pirate Bay to share unauthorized media. Downloading copyright material is currently legal in the Netherlands but uploading is not, so due to the two-way nature of BitTorrent it is deemed that those customers are infringing copyright.

While the Court noted that an ISP blockade against The Pirate Bay would also prevent subscribers with legitimate business from accessing the site, it said that the legal offerings available there are not only limited, but also available from other sites. Preventing a large number of copyright infringements trumps the availability of a more limited supply of legal content, the Court noted.

Furthermore, the Court concluded that in granting an injunction to block The Pirate Bay it would only be preventing access to a site already subject to a court order which forced its operators to block access to Internet users in the Netherlands. That order was previously issued by the Amsterdam Court but was ignored by the site’s operators.

Spokesperson for XS4ALL, Niels Huijbregts, said the company is “bitterly disappointed” by the decision, noting that fundamental rights had been traded for “commercial interests”.

The ISPs have ten days in which to initiate the blockade – failure to do so will result in fines of 10,000 euros per day.

Update: BREIN says it will ask other Dutch ISPs to block The Pirate Bay as well.

Update: XS4ALL says it will appeal the verdict.

Update: Ziggo will also appeal.