Norway court rejects industry bid to block The Pirate Bay

A Norwegian court has rejected a record industry appeal against telecoms operator Telenor for refusing to block access to popular file sharing website The Pirate Bay, a plaintiff said Wednesday.

The Oslo court of appeal said that it is not currently possible, under Norwegian law, for a judge to order an Internet service provider to halt traffic to websites from which illegal downloading happens.

"In the spirit of the law on intellectual property, Telenor does not contribute to behaviour that is reprehensible or could be subject to awarding compensation" by letting its customers access The Pirate Bay.

The extract of the court's verdict was published by Tono which is Norway's Performing Rights Society and one of the plaintiffs in the case.

Tono argues that the European directive on intellectual property "has not been correctly implemented in Norwegian law."

Before the case was first heard in November last year, Telenor argued that it refused to implement what it called "censorship."

"You cannot sue a ladder manufacturer because someone used one of his ladders to commit a burglary," Atle Lessum, a spokesman for Telenor, told the newspaper Verdens Gang before the hearing.

"We therefore reject imposed censorship like this," he added.

The Norwegian government has announced it would review its intellectual property law in the light of new technologies.

Founded in 2003, The Pirate Bay makes it possible to skirt copyright fees and share music, film and computer game files using bit torrent technology, or peer-to-peer links offered on the site.

None of the material can be found on The Pirate Bay server itself.