Entertainment Industry against UK Pirate Party & TPB

Music industry group (British Phonographic Industry) is accusing the British Pirate Party of running its TPB proxy. The copyright outfit is going to sue the British Pirate Party because it refused to take its proxy for The Pirate Bay tracker offline.

The British Phonographic Industry asked the Pirate Party to close down the site, but the outfit had to quickly turn to threats when it didn’t get its way. The Pirate Party leader claimed that the party will stand behind its principles, which could result in an expensive legal battle.

After the High Court ordered a number of British Internet service providers to block their subscribers’ access to the largest BitTorrent tracker earlier in 2012, millions of users began using the British Pirate Party’s proxy service. Frankly speaking, it’s currently one of the most popular sites in the country.


In the meanwhile, the problem is now that any legal action could turn into a financial disaster for the Pirate Party, though it assures that it would do everything in its power to keep the proxy running. The Pirate Party points out that it is clear that allowing access to the BitTorrent tracker is against the law.

The political party is becoming increasingly concerned about the fact that the music industry group has been granted too much power to decide on which sites are to be blocked. Anyway, until last week the Pirate Party hadn’t been contacted to take its proxy down.

In the meanwhile, copyright owners have taken the proxy website of the Dutch Pirate Party down. The local court strictly forbade the party from hosting or even linking to TPB proxies. Although the Dutch Pirate Party promised to appeal the verdict, it is still saving up money to afford an appeal.

Overall, the local media has already voiced the general feeling among the Pirate Party members, saying that the entertainment industry is using its legal muscle to get the Party to fold. And if it has success with that, it will be the first precedent that corporate interests have killed off a British political party. According to a representative of the British Phonographic Industry, there’s no issue with the Pirate Party itself, or the Pirate Party expressing its views on any other section of their site.