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Tough anti-piracy laws in Denmark have notably caused some serious problems for The Pirate Bay, as ISPs there were forced to block the world’s largest tracker. The law allows outfits such as IFPI to shut down sites with relative ease but this imbalance towards rights holders will be addressed in a new report due soon.
While in most countries the IFPI needs to pressure governments or ISPs in order to close Internet connections used for piracy, in Denmark laws may already allow it. Recently Clement Salung Petersen Ph.D, an assistant professor from the Center for Corporate Responsibility at the University of Copenhagen noted that Danish legislation is very much biased towards the rights holders. By contrast, Internet users and website operators receive a pretty raw deal.
“It must be assumed that it is already in accordance with current Danish law that in principle it is possible to close an Internet connection that has been used to infringe copyrights,” says Peterson. “But the law does not take into account the very significant conflicting interests that will prevail in such a case,” he added.
One of the problems lies in the way the Danes implemented the EU 2001 ‘Insofoc directive‘, which differs greatly from the manner in which other EU countries have handled it. Under Danish law, ISPs can be made responsible for the copyright violations of their subscribers, which is why ISPs can shut down a customers Internet connection or close a website so easily.
Now, according to Comon.dk, in the latest draft report from the Ministry of Culture Conference on piracy, having previously ignored the problems the Danish government has now included the concerns of Professor Petersen, as it tries to decide whether or not to introduce new legislation against users who share copyright material on the Internet.
The final version of the report will be published in the spring.
