More than 2 years ago the IFPI and other copyright groups brought action against Danish ISP Telenor demanding that it should block its subscribers from accessing The Pirate Bay. Following a hearing which began a week ago, the Supreme Court in Denmark has just ruled that The Pirate Bay must continue to be blocked, upholding previous rulings by lower courts.

Following a court case initiated by the IFPI, in early 2008 a Danish judge ruled that ISP Telenor (then Tele2) should block its customers from accessing The Pirate Bay. IFPI, representing the major recording labels, had successfully argued that Telenor was assisting in mass copyright infringement.

Later in 2008 the Eastern High Court upheld the earlier ruling but Telenor, with the support of other ISPs, said they would continue to fight. In April 2009 a Danish appeals body accepted a petition from the ISP to take the case to the Supreme Court.

“We are pleased that we now have the opportunity to find out whether it is Internet Service Providers’ responsibility to ensure the closure of a website,” noted Telenor’s regulatory chief Nicholai Kramer Pfeiffer. Representatives from the music industry believed a decision in their favor was required.

“The principle is extremely important in this case. If the Supreme Court unblocks The Pirate Bay, it means that people can abuse the Danish artists’ music again,” said Martin Arnoldsen, Executive Director of the Danish Musicians’ Union. “Many people may think that musicians are living a life with lots of money, but this is not the reality.”

The Supreme Court hearing began last week on May 20th, with Telenor making its final attempt to have the earlier decision overruled and therefore unblocking The Pirate Bay.

“The central legal argument of IFPI in this case is a statement in Danish copyright law: Any copying due to exceptions in copyright is illegal if the ‘original’ being copied is an illegal copy,” Ole Husgaard of the Danish Pirate Party told TorrentFreak last night.

“Because the ISP makes temporary copies of small fragments of the copyrighted work as IP packets pass their routers, the ISP violates copyright if one of their customers downloads an illegal copy. But this requirement of a ‘legal original’ is not allowed in the EU Infosoc directive in the case of ‘a transmission in a network between third parties by an intermediary’ (Article 5.1(a)). So here our local law violates EU law,” he explained.

Husgaard told TorrentFreak that the top civil servant in the Danish government responsible for copyright law at the time Infosoc was implemented in local law was Peter Schønning.

“Today he is no longer a civil servant. Now he is employed by IFPI, and is running the legal proceedings to get the Pirate Bay blocked for IFPI,” says Husgaard.

Today the Supreme Court announced its decision and the IFPI came out on top. Telenor – and by extension other ISPs – must continue to DNS-block The Pirate Bay so that Danish subscribers cannot access the site.

“With the Supreme Court upholding an ISP ban against providing customer access to The Pirate Bay it is clearly necessary to have legislative changes,” say the Pirate Party in a response to the ruling.

“Our copyright law should be addressed, so it is no longer in breach of EU law. And the Procedure Code should be amended so the rules on preliminary injunction can no longer be misused by, for example, IFPI to achieve a better position than they are entitled.”

This is a breaking news story and will be updated