A Norwegian court has ruled the country’s largest internet service provider (ISP) does not have to block access to file sharing site The Pirate Bay.
A number of organisations had been trying to get ISP Telenor to block The Pirate Bay since February, when they sent the ISP a warning letter.
Telenor rejected the warnings, and the case went to court.
Throughout the ordeal, the ISP maintained that there is no legal basis for the request, or any ISP to act in the interests of digital intellectual-property rights holders by blocking individual websites, and the district court in Norway agreed.
Elements of the case have mirrored the ongoing battle between the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) and Australian ISP iiNet, who has also maintained a similar stance to Telenor.
AFACT revealed in the Federal Court of Australia last week that it will seek for iiNet to block websites like this should it be successful in the case.
However, while on the stand under cross examination iiNet CEO, Michael Malone, said the ISP does not have the technical capabilities to block BitTorrent traffic from websites like The Pirate Bay.
“To completely and conclusively block asses to The Pirate Bay, I believe it to be beyond our technical capability or that of any ISP,” he said during the court hearing at the Federal Court of Australia.
Last week, AFACT also submitted to the court a draft ISP code of conduct relating to computer security, despite Justice Cowdroy questioning its relevance.
See more on the AFACT v iiNet case.
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