After court cases in Denmark, The Netherlands and Italy, The Pirate Bay is now involved in a legal procedure in Portugal. ACAPOR, a Portuguese organization which represents the interests of local movie rental companies, has filed a complaint with the Portuguese Ministry of Culture to demand Internet providers block customer access to The Pirate Bay.

In an attempt to ensure that Portuguese citizens can’t access the world’s most resilient torrent site, ACAPOR has filed a complaint against The Pirate Bay. The complaint was filed with the General Inspection of Cultural Activities, which is part of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture.

According to the movie rental association, The Pirate Bay is directly responsible for about 15 million illegal downloads in Portugal every year. By installing a Pirate Bay block at all ISPs, ACAPOR hopes to decrease the financial damage they claim it causes.

A similar nationwide block was previously ordered in Italy. In a lengthy legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court, it was ruled that BitTorrent sites that host torrent files are playing a significant role in the downloading and uploading process of their users.

Aside from the complaint against The Pirate Bay, ACAPOR has also announced a separate case against Piratatuga.net, a site that links to various movie, game and music titles hosted on third party sites. With approximately 50,000 Portugese visitors a day this site is as popular in Portugal as The Pirate Bay, ACAPOR claims.

Aside from requesting a block for both sites, ACAPOR has asked the prosecutor to identify the owners of Piratatuga.net and start a criminal investigation.

Whatever the outcome of ACAPOR’s actions, it is doubtful that the Portuguese movie rental companies will establish the desired outcome. The free publicity will only bring in more visitors to the site. As we’ve seen before in Italy and Denmark, people will come up with workarounds to regain access to the site and the total number of visitors will only grow.