In a surprise move several major record labels in Finland have asked the District Court of Helsinki to unblock Pirate Bay's Promo Bay. The local anti-piracy group did so after confirming that the website did not facilitate copyright infringement, noting that it is eager "to allow digital consumers access to new legal alternatives to enjoy exciting new music."

A few months ago saw the launch of The Promo Bay, an artist promotion initiative supported by The Pirate Bay crew.

The website is entirely dedicated to promoting the work of independent musicians, filmmakers and other content creators. Through The Promo Bay these artists get to showcase their work to an audience of hundreds and thousands of people at no cost.

Unfortunately, however, artists in the UK and Finland were unable to submit their content after the site was blocked by their Internet providers due its affiliation with The Pirate Bay.

Recognizing this error, music industry group BPI instructed the UK’s ISPs to unblock the site. However, The Promo Bay remained blocked in Finland, until now.

Representing EMI, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music and Warner Music, a representative from the Finnish Anti-Piracy Centre got in touch with the Promo Bay a few days ago, to ask whether site is indeed a legal operation.

“The interesting thing was that we didn’t ask them to,” Promo bay’s Will Dayble tells TorrentFreak.

The anti-piracy group mentions in their email that The Promo Bay domains are blocked because they were directly linked the The Pirate Bay in the past.

The anti-piracy group asked Dayble to confirm the legitimate nature of the site, and said it would then ask the court to unblock the domains “to allow digital consumers access to new legal alternatives to enjoy exciting new music.”

Needless to say, Dayble was pleasantly surprised by the inquiry.

“They went to the effort to find my personal email and get in touch. This means that someone at the Finnish anti piracy group is either being as diligent about things that aren’t piracy as those that are, or we have a kind soul out there annoying the powers that be on our behalf,” Dayble tells TorrentFreak.

After explaining what the Promo Bay is about, and assuring the Finnish labels that no copyright infringement is taking place through the service, it obtained the music industry’s blessing. Albeit with reservation.

Pirate Bay unblocked

“Your message clarified the legal aspects of your service. Although we do express our concern with regard to your partial cooperation with The Pirate Bay, which is an illegal service and whose operators have been convicted in Sweden, we have decided to remove Promo Bay from the said domain name list,” the Anti-Piracy Centre wrote.

The above means that the music labels do understand that some artists see value in getting promoted by The Pirate Bay. Quite a breakthrough if you think about it.

After a delay of a few months Finnish artists can now finally join The Pirate Bay promo bonanza. However, while magnet links to music are available on The Promo Bay, artists featured by The Pirate Bay can never see their own promos in full as The Pirate Bay’s main website remains blocked.