As part of the entertainment industries’ mission to have infringing sites blocked by ISPs in Finland, in 2011 the Helsinki District court ordered local ISP Elisa to block The Pirate Bay to prevent music piracy.

A year later, IPFI filed a lawsuit against two other providers and the administrators of the Pirate Bay, demanding that the former restrict access and the latter cease-and-desist their activities.

In 2016 and after the operators of the site failed to respond, the Helsinki District Court handed down a default judgment requiring site co-founder Peter Sunde to pay several record labels including Sony, Universal, Warner and EMI, around €350,000 in damages. On top, Sunde was restrained from any further infringement on pain of a €1,000,000 penalty.

Better Result for Sunde at District Court

Sunde appealed the decision and in 2018 the District Court agreed to drop the €1m threat. In addition, the recording labels dropped their €350,000 damages claim. Sunde was kept on the hook for around €7,700 in various costs, however.

In its decision, the Court found that Peter Sunde was liable for infringements that took place via The Pirate Bay only between 2010 and 2014, citing Sunde’s involvement in a trademark dispute centering on the Pirate Bay’s logo that took place in that period. Sunde, however, said he only stepped into that matter as a public duty and was not involved in the site.

Both parties appealed the District Court’s decision to the Helsinki Court of Appeal. Sunde said the action was inadmissible since it hadn’t been heard on its merits and asked for the case to dismissed in its entirety.

The record companies said that Sunde should be held responsible for copyright infringement from July 2005 onwards and should be prevented from any further breaches under the threat of a €1,000,000 penalty.

Court of Appeal Hands Down Decision

The Court handed down its decision Friday, noting that it had only been proven that Peter Sunde acted as an operator of The Pirate Bay between July 2005 until August 2009 and was therefore only responsible for infringement that took place during this period. There was no evidence to show that Sunde had been involved in the site later on.

“The defendant is prohibited from repeating the infringements under threat of a fine of EUR 35,000. The Court of Appeal found that it was competent to also hear the case in respect of the distribution of recordings via Swedish telecommunications operators on the grounds that the defendant was domiciled in Finland and the recordings had been available in Finland,” the Court’s summary of the decision reads.

Sunde was also ordered to pay legal and other costs totaling around €19,200. Anti-piracy group TTVK welcomed the decision.

“The judgment of the Court of Appeal is clear and well reasoned. Naturally, we welcome that and hope that the long process for Sunde will end here. It is good to remember that the original and most important goal of the right holders was to prevent the operation of the world’s most popular pirate service in Finland,” the TTVK statement reads.

IFPI also welcomed the decision but complained that despite all of the work and numerous legal processes, The Pirate Bay remains stubbornly online.

“We welcome the decision from the court today. Copyright infringement harms the music ecosystem and prevents music creators from being fairly compensated,” IFPI says.

“Right holders have been forced to pursue The Pirate Bay across multiple jurisdictions in Europe over a ten-year period. Despite a vast number of court decisions confirming the illegality of the service, The Pirate Bay remains available in many countries within the EU. A successful digital single market requires effective measures so that creators can enforce their rights across the EU.”

Sunde Comments

Peter Sunde informs TorrentFreak that he’s happy to hear that the court realized that he hasn’t been involved with The Pirate Bay for well over a decade. Still, he’s not happy with the decision itself.

“It’s a bizarre situation being in a court case in 2021 regarding evidence from a 16-year-old court case in another country. It’s very kafkaesque and shines a light on the unequal power distribution between ideological activists and big capital,” Sunde tells us.

According to Sunde, intellectual property rights continue to be misused. Access to potentially life-saving inventions and vaccines can be restricted by patents, which are used to secure the profits of large organizations.

“The idea of immaterial rights has transitioned from a noble one – protecting speech and promoting a more enlightened community; to a tool to control monetary flow for the benefit of the super-rich, to the cost of the rest of society,” Sunde notes.

The court’s decision in Finland should be viewed in that light, the Pirate Bay co-founder argues.

“The people that are trying to control the narrative of today’s society, by using immaterial rights and their influence in culture, are some of the most dangerous people in the world. Not only because they are selfish but also because they don’t realize what they’re doing. And this is the key takeaway from today’s society: we can’t expect a fair outcome, a fair trial unless we make the rules be about fairness and not about power.”