Icelandic ISPs Will Block Access To Pirate Bay And Deildu

ISPs have agreed with copyright holders to restrict access to the torrent sites, but an MP for the Pirate Party says the ban sets a dangerous precedent.

RÚV reports that copyright holder organisations and Iceland’s major ISPs have reached an agreement to block their customers’ access to the Icelandic-language torrent site Deildu.net and the Pirate Bay. This agreement follows a Reykjavík District Court ruling made last year.

The agreement alleges the ISPs will block access to the sites regardless of what domain the site is hosted under. However, Grapevine has tested for access to both sites via any of the thousands of proxy server sites available on the internet, and was easily able to access both websites. Both Nova and Vodafone internet access were used for the test. In addition, there are hundreds of websites providing free proxy service exclusively for Pirate Bay, which can be found simply by searching for “Pirate Bay proxy”. Grapevine was also able to easily access many other major torrent sites without a proxy, and there are untold numbers of such sites to choose from.

Pirate Party MP Ásta Guðrún Helgadóttir has harshly criticised the access ban, Vísir reports, calling it “censorship” in the form of a “public-private partnership”, wherein “a private organisation, in this case copyright holders, are making an agreement to do something that the judicial or executive branches of government only should oversee.”

The move also sets a dangerous precedent, she warns.

“It seems to me the ruling will set a precedent for blocking access to websites without taking the matter to trial first and proving [the torrent sites] have hurt anyone,” she said. “And it has been shown – repeatedly – that blocking access to sites such as this simply does not work.”