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File-sharing site The Pirate Bay went down today after its Internet service provider, Black Internet, cut its connection to avoid being fined by the Stockholm district court.

A 500,000 Swedish kronor US$70,000 fine would be the result if Black Internet did not comply with the decision in the district court.

“The decision was made by the district court on Friday, but reached us today and we have decided to comply. … We are a small operator and we havent got the financial resources to pursue such a matter,” said Victor Möller, CEO at Black Internet, in an interview with Computer Sweden.

The Stockholm courts decision goes back to May when a number of movie and record companies filed a motion with the court to fine the people behind the Pirate Bay operation, including Black Internet, as long as The Pirate Bay users can access copyright-protected material.

Black Internet isnt the only operator that sells capacity to The Pirate Bay, but its by far the largest. There is some redundancy with capacity from other operators, but not enough for the site to be up and running.

A Swedish court apparently decided it is illegal to be an ISP, said former Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde via Twitter today.

This isnt the first time copyright holders have been able to block The Pirate Bay by taking action against an ISP. The same tactic worked in Denmark, but failed in Italy. There is also a case pending in in Norway, which will go to court Oct. 17.

Meanwhile, Global Gaming Factory X is planning to acquire The Pirate Bay. Its shareholders will decide at a meeting Thursday whether the deal should go through.

Man, these Copyright Office triennial DMCA hearings seem to be some kind of competition for media-industry lawyers to present ridiculous arguments — just a couple months after the MPAA tried to convince us that videotaping DVDs was an acceptable alternative to ripping, the RIAA’s claiming that consumers shouldn’t expect their DRM servers to stay online and allow them to play their music to play forever. No joke. The argument comes as the Copyright Office decides whether or not to allow a DMCA exemption for breaking DRM, and RIAA lawyer Steven Metalitz’s position is that copyright owners shouldn’t be required to “provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works,” since “no other product or service providers are held to such lofty standards.” Of course, that’s only partially true, since properly maintained physical media and DRM-free content theoretically can be played forever, but why acknowledge reality when you can jack up your legal bills making completely absurd arguments that make your porcine, slowly-decaying clients seem even more doomed than before?

by Nilay Patel via Engadget

For years the RIAA has defended the use of DRM, much to the dislike of millions of honest customers who actually paid for their music. Now, in a shocking turnaround, the outfit seems to have come to the realization that DRM does more harm than good and has officially declared its death.

The digital music landscape is evolving continuously. Just two years ago RIAA chairman and CEO Mitch Bainwol defended the use of DRM on digital music because customers would benefit from it.

“DRM serves all sorts of pro-consumer purposes,” he said at the time, without going into detail about the alleged benefits.

However, in the year that followed the numbers of consumers calling for DRM-free music increased and more labels and music services started to offer music without digital restrictions. Still, the RIAA was not convinced that there could be a future without it, and predicted a comeback for DRM last year.

Quite the opposite happened. Although DRM is still present in the majority of the legal music stores, most of the big players have decided to ditch it. Most importantly Apple announced in early 2009 that all music sold via the iTunes store would be free of DRM. This time even the RIAA doesn’t believe that it can be resurrected.

Jonathan Lamy, chief spokesperson for the RIAA declared DRM dead, when he was asked about the RIAA’s view on DRM for an upcoming SCMagazine article. “DRM is dead, isn’t it?” Lamy said, referring to the DRM-less iTunes store and other online outfits that now offer music without restrictions.

When the most vocal forefighters of DRM say so, it must be for real. Although this is the first time that the RIAA have actually said on record that DRM is dead, other players in the music industry have seen the light before them. Most notable IFPI, who said earlier this year that stripping DRM would “significantly boost download sales.”

In this we have to agree with them. All DRM has ever done is annoy consumers who actually paid for their music. No single piece of DRM has ever stopped anyone from pirating music, it’s quite the opposite as the music industry now realizes.

via TorrentFreak