Last month TorrentFreak exclusively revealed that Disney Enterprises and Paramount Pictures in association with Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal Studios and Warner Bros. (collectively as the MPA) had begun threatening CyberBunker owner CB3ROB Ltd with legal action over their hosting of The Pirate Bay.
The MPA stated that since CB3ROB knows that The Pirate Bay is “an infringing site”, then the company had to take responsibility for bringing those infringements to an end – in other words, stop providing the site with hosting and bandwidth. Failure to comply would result in the MPA taking legal action against CB3ROB in Germany.
After receiving new information from a previously reliable source, we can now confirm that the MPA have made good on their threats.
It appears that Columbia Pictures, Disney Enterprises, Paramount Pictures,Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros. have obtained a preliminary injunction against CB3ROB Ltd from the Regional Court of Hamburg.
The injunction, which was granted without an oral hearing, states that the CB3ROB company (and its Managing Director Mr. Sven Olaf Kamphuis personally) are hereby prohibited from connecting The Pirate Bay website and associated servers to the Internet.
The injunction relates specifically to The Pirate Bay offering torrents which allow users to download the following movies – The Bounty Hunter, Alice in Wonderland, Our Family Wedding, Green Zone, Repo Men and Cop Out.
The Court agreed that CB3ROB and Sven Olaf Kamphuis are liable for infringements on the above movies pursuant to the “Störerhaftung” principle. Also known as “disturber” or “interferer” liability, it means that someone who is knowingly connected to infringements can become the subject of an injunction, without actually carrying out those infringements themselves.
From the information currently available, in order to satisfy the Court it appears that CyberBunker have to either disconnect The Pirate Bay from the Internet, or the operators of the site have to do something that has never happened in the site’s history – remove the torrents listed in the injunction on copyright grounds.
The penalties for failing to comply appear to be very severe indeed.
The Court can fix a fine of up to 250,000 euros for each recorded case of infringement on the above movies. In the event that the fine cannot be enforced, it appears that Sven Olaf Kamphuis is being threatened with up to 2 years in jail.
“We have no information about this,” CB3ROB told TorrentFreak. “No letters have reached us or our attorneys.”
Enigmax @'Torrent Freak'
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