Music industry group the BPI is sending its lawyers after the UK Pirate Party after they refused to take their Pirate Bay proxy offline. Last week the BPI kindly asked the Pirates to shut down the website, but quickly turned to threats when they didn't get their way. Pirate Party leader Loz Kaye tells TorrentFreak that they are determined to stand behind their principles, even if that means getting involved in an expensive legal battle.

After the High Court ordered several UK ISPs to block subscriber access to The Pirate Bay earlier this year, millions of users flocked to the proxy service of the UK Pirate Party.

In a matter of weeks the proxy became one of the most popular sites in the UK, and at the time of writing it’s listed among the 150 most-visited websites in the region.

The music industry, which fought an expensive legal battle to have the blockade put in place, is understandably frustrated with the Pirate Party’s service. Last week the BPI took action and asked the UK Pirate Party to take its proxy service offline.

No “threats” were made at the time, but this changed when the Pirates indicated that the proxy would remain available.

A music industry source told TorrentFreak that the BPI intends to follow-up their request with legal action, and just before the weekend the Pirate Party received word that they would be hearing from BPI’s lawyers.

“Geoff Taylor of the BPI has written to me to say we should expect a letter from their solicitors,” UK Pirate Party leader Loz Kaye told TorrentFreak.

Thus far, however, the Pirates have yet to receive the legal paperwork.

“As of Saturday, if paperwork has been filed then we are unaware of it. If the BPI choose to file a lawsuit then we will deal with that as we become aware of it. We would have thought they would have preferred to talk to us first, but it is their choice as to what they do,” Kaye says.

The threat of legal action is very real and could turn into a financial disaster, but the UK Pirate Party will do everything in its power to keep the proxy online. According to Kaye it is by no means clear that allowing access to The Pirate Bay is against the law.

“Obviously our position is clear, we have done nothing wrong, we oppose site blocking and think that the whole area is one that requires clarification through legislation. After all the Pirate Bay is not blocked by all ISPs, it is available via any number of services and we were running our proxy before it became blocked in the UK,” Kaye says.

In addition, the party highlights the collateral damage of these blocks, as we saw with the Promo Bay last week.

“Blocks now seem to have been used against services like Promo Bay, with the BPI being given significant power on deciding what they think should and shouldn’t be blocked. I would add that up until last week we had not been contacted by any party to ask us to take it down.”

While the Pirate Party may have the spirit to fight, it doesn’t quite have sufficient funds to do so. The Pirates don’t have the financial support of the major music labels, like the BPI, but rely on contributions from the public instead.

If this becomes a financial arms race, The Pirate Party is poised to lose and they are currently running a fundraiser to prevent this from happening.

The Copyright Industry is trying to kill the Pirate Party

Despite being up against a billion pound industry, Pirate Party leader Loz Kays says he and his fellow members will fight for their principles.

“It is clear that we are facing a significant threat, and we will have to fight it. And fight it well, not just for the sake of the Pirate Party, but because of the principles at stake. I have always believed that it is not just enough to have principles, you need to act on them too, even if it gets difficult.”

“I joined the Pirate Party because I passionately believe these are political issues. For every new person who starts to ask questions about digital rights, that’s a win. For every new person who stands up and gets involved, that’s a victory,” Kaye concludes.

Previously copyright holders successfully took the proxy site of the Dutch Pirate Party offline. The court forbid the Pirates from hosting or even linking to Pirate Bay proxies. The Dutch Pirate Party announced that they would appeal the verdict, but are still collecting funds to do so.