Swedish prosecutors prepare to ask courts to seize key Pirate Bay domains

By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 22 April 2015

Swedish prosecutors are prepping to argue their case in court as to why The Pirate Bay’s flagship .se domains should be deactivated or put under government control, as copyright enforcers continue to try and make it harder for piracy platforms to operate.

Seizing domains, of course, is one of a number of tactics used by those fighting piracy, and authorities in other countries have done just that against various other sites, usually replacing the piracy operations with a notice alerting users that the site is no longer operational because of a copyright action.

The Bay has actually anticipated having its .se domains seized for a while, and at one point kept switching its primary URL to different domain registries around the world. Though it often saw those new domains quickly blocked by each new domain registry after action by local copyright industries or IP enforcers.

But the Swedish domain has so far remained unseized (even though ISPs in various countries have been forced to block access to it). Next week prosecutors will argue in the Stockholm District Court that it’s time to call time on thepiratebay.se. The action is being led by Fredrik Ingblad, who also oversaw the server raid against the Bay in Sweden last December, which resulted in the infamous file-sharing site going offline for a time.

Of course, even if Ingblad succeeds in his domain claim, the Bay will presumably have an assortment of other domains to use instead. And in the Google age it’s not so problematic if your domains keep changing. Though many rights owners argue that any barriers put in the way of piracy operations are a good thing.

In related news, the majors have filed legal action in the US against another piracy operation called MP3skull, which – aside from seeking $15 million+ in damages – deals with domain matters. The labels are seeking an injunction banning domain registries, server companies and, for that matter, advertisers from doing business with the piracy company.

Which is interesting in that would be a very wide-ranging court order, though obviously injunctions are constrained by jurisdiction – ie it could only apply in the US – which would limit its impact on a site currently using a domain registered in Tonga.

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