Swedish ISP Telia Ordered to Block TPB and Other Major Torrent Websites

• Sweden's Patent and Market Court has asked local ISP Telia to block a number of torrent and streaming websites.
• The ruling came into force in October after a complaint was filed by Hollywood studios.
• The websites that are now blocked include The Pirate Bay, Dreamfilm, FMovies, and NyaFilmer.

Four major torrent websites in Sweden have been blocked by local ISP Telia after a complaint was filed by Hollywood studios as well as other local media companies. The ruling went into effect after the Patent and Market Court of Sweden asked the ISP to ban four major websites in October that include The Pirate Bay, Dreamfilm, FMovies, and NyaFilmer. Such bans are now becoming common all over Europe with torrent and streaming websites being blocked by ISPs.

Telia is not the first ISP to block torrent websites in the country. It all started in February 2017 when ISP Bredbandsbolaget blocked The Pirate Bay and Swefilmer. It takes a long time to get a court injunction to block websites in any part of the world. The original lawsuit against the websites that have been blocked by Bredbandsbolaget was filed in 2014.

ISPs like Telia were able to offer access to websites like The Pirate Bay because only Bredbandsbolaget was asked to block the popular pirate website. However, with other ISPs being held accountable by the entertainment industry for piracy, court orders have forced other internet providers to block access to the popular websites.

Film and TV Industry Cooperation Committee member Per Strömbäck revealed “The decision was expected and complies with the current legal situation. Now it’s high time that Telia takes the same responsibility in Sweden as it already does in Denmark and Norway.”

According to the Patent and Market Court of Sweden that under European Law, it is possible for any copyright holder to receive an injunction against ISPs for blocking piracy websites that infringe upon their copyrights. A blocking order is considered an appropriate response by EU law and that is what led to Telia being asked to block access to the four major torrent and streaming websites in the country.

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