Pirate Bay may finally be sunk after EU copyright ruling

(credit: Aurich Lawson / Thinkstock)

Infamous BitTorrent tracker site The Pirate Bay can be found liable of copyright violations even if it doesn't host any infringing content, Europe's top court has ruled.

"Making available and managing an online platform for sharing copyright-protected works, such as 'The Pirate Bay,' may constitute an infringement of copyright," the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) said in its judgment on Wednesday. "Even if the works in question are placed online by the users of the online sharing platform, the operators of that platform play an essential role in making those works available."

The ruling isn't only good news for copyright lawyers, but it also paves the way for ISPs across Europe to choke access to The Pirate Bay, which started life in Sweden in 2003 and has undergone a number of high-profile legal battles-including prison time for its founders, after they were found guilty of being accessories to breaching copyright laws in 2009.

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