Swedish court orders confiscation of Pirate Bay domains

Mark Frauenfelder 9:02 am Thu May 12, 2016

The Swedish Court of Appeal is confiscating two domains of the popular torrent directory Pirate Bay. The prosecution did not go after The Pirate Bay directly. Instead, it targeted filed a complaint against Punkt SE (IIS), the organization that manages the .SE domain.

From Torrent Freak:

The case was heard in April 2015 and a month later the Stockholm District Court ruled that The Pirate Bay should forfeit both ThePirateBay.se and PirateBay.se.

But despite ordering the domain seizures the case against IIS was essentially rejected, with the District Court dismissing the prosecution’s case and awarding the registry close to $40,000 in costs. As a result the prosecution took the case to appeal.

This morning, however, the Svea Court of Appeal handed down its decision which upholds the decision of the Stockholm District Court.

“In common with the District Court ruling the Court of Appeal finds that there is a basis for confiscation since the domain names assisted crimes under the Copyright Act,” the Svea Court of Appeal said in a statement.

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