Previously, representatives from the Finnish music industry filed a lawsuit against Elisa, one of the country's largest ISPs, demanding that it should block subscriber access to The Pirate Bay. In a reply filed at the district court, Elisa has refused to comply, describing the blocking demands as "unreasonable."

During May the Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Centre (CIAPC) and the Finnish branch of IFPI announced that they had filed a lawsuit at the District Court in Helsinki.

The latest in a growing line of lawsuits against service providers worldwide, the legal action demands that Elisa, one of Finland’s largest ISPs, should block all subscriber access to The Pirate Bay.

Elisa, however, aren’t going to give in so easily.

Despite CIAPC (better known locally as TTVK) and IFPI’s claims that blocking The Pirate Bay is the only practical solution to slow down piracy, Elisa have lodged a reply at the District Court which rejects the demands of the music groups.

While Elisa indicate that they have no fundamental objection to assisting with the fight against unlawful file-sharing, Elisa Senior Vice President Panu Lehti says the lawsuit’s demands are unacceptable.

“The fact that the requirement [to block TPB] applies to only one Internet service provider is unreasonable,” says Lehti.

Singling out one ISP for legal action is the usual modus operandi for the entertainment industries, especially in website blocking cases. CIAPC and IFPI selected Elisa because they have proportionally more subscribers using The Pirate Bay than any other ISP.

Lehti says the basic censorship strategy is flawed and successfully blocking The Pirate Bay would prove technically “very difficult or even impossible.”

The industry groups counter by saying they have been left with no other choices after the criminal conviction of the Pirate Bay admins following their November 2010 appeal failed to close down the site. Instead, the number of Finns using the site only increased.

According to the industry groups The Pirate Bay is the preferred online location for Finns to access illicit music. This makes it one of the most popular sites in the country, and one which has broken into the top 30 most-visited sites.

“The development of a legitimate online market in Finland will not be successful if illegal services such as the Pirate Bay can continue to operate,” says producer representative Lauri Rechardt.

Others believe the reverse is true, i.e build the legal services and “they shall come.”

This week, Johan Lagerlöf the CEO and Co-Founder of X5 Music Group in Sweden, has been speaking about the success enjoyed by Spotify, the ‘pirate-killing’ service that has just launched in the US.

“Spotify has had the biggest impact on the Scandinavian music market since the launch of the CD,” Lagerlöf told Hypebot in a Q&A.

“Spotify is currently the biggest single revenue source for the music industry and is estimated to be over 3 times bigger than iTunes in Scandinavia. Despite that, digital downloads grew 17% in Sweden last year compared to 3% in the US.”

“Piracy for music has almost stopped.”