In early November, the IFPI backed by several movie studios lost its case to force ISP Telenor to block The Pirate Bay. Unsatisfied with this decision, the copyright holders are insisting that since the ISP is contributing to piracy, the court has ruled incorrectly. They will now take their case to the High Court.

In March, the IFPI, MPAA and several local movie studios began threatening Telenor, Norway’s largest ISP. Unless Telenor voluntarily blocked customer access to The Pirate Bay, they said, it would get taken to court.

Telenor boss Ragnar Kårhus refused to comply and IFPI rolled out the lawyers and early November saw the delivery of the verdict in the case.

The Asker and Bærum District Court ruled that Telenor was indeed a contributor to infringement as it provides the infrastructure to access TPB, and that it was also a passive contributor due to the fact that it refused to act when its service was used in connection with illicit file-sharing.

However, since these contributory acts were not directed at specific customers or what they did on The Pirate Bay, or indeed the actions of the Pirate Bay itself, the court decided that Telenor operates in the same manner whether its systems are used for legal or illegal uses.

In a nutshell, although Telenor was “guilty” of contributory infringement, their actions were not unlawful. Furthermore, when making its decision the district court looked in depth at the possible repercussions if it decided that Telenor, and by extension other ISPs, had to police the Internet.

The court therefore refused to sanction the blocking of The Pirate Bay.

Of course, with this apparent ambiguity the copyright holders aren’t going to accept the court’s ruling, and have been making statements this week detailing their plans.

“We believe the ruling is incorrect and, therefore, we have appealed the decision in the High Court,” said Cato Power from music performing rights outfit, TONO.

“If it’s the case that the Norwegian authorities have not implemented the EU Copyright Directive properly, as the district court said, this is serious. For us this is a principled case that it is important to clarify law in a higher authority,” he added.

Commenting for the IFPI, Marte Thorsby insists that Telenor is acting unlawfully by providing customer access to The Pirate Bay.

“The court is crystal clear that Telenor contributes physically to make The Pirate Bay available for their customers,” she said in a statement.

“We believe, contrary to the court, that this participation is in conflict with Norwegian law. We see that ISPs in several European countries have been made responsible for providing access to illegal services, and believe that this also is the situation in Norway.”