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The Pirate Bay continues to come under siege.

The latest blow came on Monday when a Danish court ordered one of that country's Internet service providers to block access to the BitTorrent search engine, according to Danish IT magazine Computerworld.

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry brought a civil case against Tele2 Denmark after the ISP refused to filter the Web sites its customers visited.

The Pirate Bay, based in Sweden, is one of the world's most popular piracy tools. The company, founded by three Scandinavians, doesn't host any copyright films or music. Instead, visitors use the site to find pirated material available on torrent files.

Hollywood studios have long considered The Pirate Bay an outlaw organization. The site's founders say they operate in accordance with Swedish law.

Last week, a Swedish prosecutor charged four men connected to The Pirate Bay with conspiracy to violate copyright law.

Continuing an aggressive campaign to defend his copyrights, pop star Prince is preparing to file lawsuits within the next few days in three countries--including the United States--against The Pirate Bay, CNET News.com has learned.

John Giacobbi

(Credit: Web Sheriff)

One of the world's best-known BitTorrent indexing sites, The Pirate Bay has defiantly linked to pirated copies of films, TV shows, music videos, and other content while often boasting that it ignores Hollywood's requests to remove them. The Pirate Bay does not host any unauthorized content, but the service is internationally famous for being a highly effective file-sharing tool.

Prince will file similar suits against The Pirate Bay in the U.S., France, a country with laws favorable to copyright owners, and Sweden, where The Pirate Bay is based. In addition, Prince is preparing to take civil action against companies that advertise on The Pirate Bay, many of which are headquartered in Israel, according to John Giacobbi, Web Sheriff's president.

Prince has hired Giacobbi and Web Sheriff, a service that protects copyright materials from Internet piracy, to coordinate the legal challenges against The Pirate Bay and others who the singer believes has violated his copyright.

Giacobbi said Web Sheriff is also helping to launch an investigation into The Pirate Bay's off-shore connections to determine whether the company is compliant with Swedish and international income and corporation tax laws.

The Pirate Bay has already weathered several attempts by the governments of Sweden and the United States to shut down the site. Yet, this is likely the largest civil challenge the Web site has ever faced.

At the core of Prince's lawsuits are his claims that the three founders of The Pirate Bay are profiting from the work of artists without compensating them. The Pirate Bay earns $70,000 a month in advertising revenue, Giacobbi alleged. The site's founders have previously denied that the operation makes money.

None of the three founders of The Pirate Bay could be reached for comment.

The Pirate Bay Founders, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm

(Credit: Pontus Alexander/Fabian Landgren)

Prince, who Giacobbi said has the backing of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, or IFPI, the group that represents the recording industry worldwide, is only adding to The Pirate Bay's legal troubles. The site founders also face criminal charges, according to a story published Thursday on the blog TorrentFreak.

A prosecutor in Sweden announced that he plans to press charges against five people involved with The Pirate Bay before January 31, 2008, the blog reported. The five are being accused of infringing on intellectual property.

The copyright battle that Prince has waged the past two months has not been without its costs. He was widely criticized this week when three unauthorized fan sites accused him of trying to violate their free speech rights when his handlers demanded that they remove several photos of him.

It was widely reported this week that Prince had begun suing fans. His representatives denied this.

"Prince is not suing his fans, is not looking to penalize fans and nor is he looking to inhibiting freedom of speech in any way," said AEG, Prince's promoter.

Prince began making headlines in September after lashing out against sites he believed were violating his intellectual-property rights.

In September, the singer said he planned to take legal action against The Pirate Bay, YouTube, and eBay. As of Friday, Prince's lawsuits appeared to be solely targeted at The Pirate Bay.

By suing The Pirate Bay in three different countries, Prince is hoping to put financial pressure on the service, Giacobbi said. Copyright laws in the United States and France would also make it nearly impossible for a site like The Pirate Bay to triumph, he claimed.

"There is no way that they will have any defense because it's blatant piracy," Giacobbi said. "They'll either have to come out and fight or just try and ignore it. In that case, we're going to win a default judgment against them. This could be a ticking time bomb for them. They can't outrun this. We are very confident."

Yesterday, the New York Times ran an article about Imeem, pegged to the news that this fledgling site has signed a third major label, EMI, leaving only Universal in the "not yet" column. The service is getting credit for trying to pioneer a new business model for digital music distribution: users can select songs and stream them for free, as long as they're willing to sit through the occasional advertisement.

I registered and fired the service up, and while I'm not ready to call ad-supported music DOA, Imeem isn't about to unseat the current digital music leaders. The main problem: I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing on the site.

UPDATE: In an attempt to "reclaim the Internet," Prince is preparing to file lawsuits against YouTube, eBay and The Pirate Bay, for allegedly encouraging copyright violations, according to one of his representatives.

The rock star has hired Web Sheriff, a British-based company that specializes in hunting down pirated content on the Web, to launch a legal campaign against companies that wrongfully profit from the artist's work, according to John Giacobbi, Web Sheriff's president.

Prince plans to file suit in both the United States and the U.K., and has hired a top Swedish law firm to take action against The Pirate Bay, a BitTorrent tracking site, Giacobbi said on Thursday. Prince has chosen a legal course because sites like YouTube and eBay have left him no other effective way to protect his copyright on their sites, according to Giacobbi.

Prince first hired Web Sheriff to patrol the Web for illegal uses of his material, and then to send "take-down notices" to sites when they found pirated material, Giacobbi said. But he added that sending written notices had little impact.

"In the past couple of weeks, we have removed about 2,000 infringing clips from YouTube," Giacobbi said. "We get them down and the next day, there are 100 or 200 more. Their business model is built on making money off other people's creative work."

Hani Durzy, a spokesman for eBay said the company has programs in place to help rights holders protect their property.

"The bottom line for us is that counterfeit or pirated goods are illegal and have no place on eBay," Durzy said. "We would be happy to work with Prince and his representatives to show them how they can work with us to make sure any infringing items come down."

Prince may be the first major artist to come out against Google, which acquired YouTube nearly a year ago. The move may prove a risky one for Prince. Many Internet users side with Google/YouTube on the issue of copyright. They think movie, TV and music executives are trying to put the squeeze on fans.

Prince could lose support from people who think his campaign is motivated by greed.

For Google, Prince is likely the best known artist to criticize the company for it's stand on copyright. Google and YouTube already face a $1 billion lawsuit filed earlier this year by media-conglomerate Viacom and a class-action suit filed by a group that includes several professional European sports leagues.

Google has always said that it obeys copyright laws. The company maintains that a safe harbor in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act protects service providers from any illegal acts committed by users. YouTube also removes copyright work once notified by an owner.

UPDATE

YouTube said that it works to protect copyright owners every day.

"Most content owners understand that we respect copyrights," said Zahavah Levine, YouTube's chief counsel in a e-mail. "We work every day to help them manage their content, and we are developing state-of-the-art tools to let them do that even better. We have great partnerships with major music labels all over world that understand the benefit of using YouTube as another way to communicate with their fans."

Peter Sunde, one of the cofounders of The Pirate Bay who goes by the online handle "brokep," said that he hasn't heard anything about Prince's lawsuit. He also said that The Pirate Bay likely receives take-down notices from Web Sheriffs but that the company's "spam filters take care" of them.

The Pirate Bay Founders, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm

(Credit: Pontus Alexander/Fabian Landgren)

Partying with "cute blondes," and maintaining one of the world's most influential underground Web sites keeps The Pirate Bay team busy, according to cofounder Peter Sunde. But in their spare time, the three Scandinavians have labored to bring back SuprNova.org.

In an e-mail interview with CNET News.com, Sunde detailed some of the site's new features and launch timetable (there isn't one). He also outlined why his group wanted to bring back SuprNova, which boasted a rabid following before shutting down in 2004 as a result of legal action by the movie industry.

"We want to send a finger to the ones who try to stop sites like (SuprNova and The Pirate Bay)." Sunde wrote in his e-mail. "It's not right to close them down and this is proof that you can't. I think this is the first time in history that any closed file-sharing site has returned and that's just awesome for us to be part of."

Hollywood has accused SuprNova and The Pirate Bay, founded by Sunde, Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, of encouraging copyright theft. They track BitTorrent files that are often used to download unauthorized copies of TV shows and movies. A representative for the Motion Picture Assoc. of America (MPAA), could not be reached for comment on Friday.

Sunde said SuprNova is going to be a starter site for those new to BitTorrent.

"SuprNova will be for the beginners," Sunde wrote. "It's easier to use than most sites out there and we want everybody to be able to use it. We will probably also run a new java applet client on the site for those who do not know what a torrent is--that means you can press another download link and it will open a client directly with no installation and still download."

SuprNova will differ from The Pirate Bay in significant ways. First, SuprNova will be a torrent index and according to Sunde, the site will feature over 1 million torrents at launch.

"The Pirate Bay has its own trackers," Sunde wrote. "We have more info on the torrents since people upload them to the site and describe them."

An important difference between SuprNova and other Torrent trackers is that the site won't be censored. "We will be the first indexer site where you can find stuff even though people want the stuff removed," Sunde said.

As for reports that the site will debut this week, Sunde didn't want to commit to a certain date.

"It will launch as soon as we're done with the site," he said. "As you know we're not very conventional. We party, we have girls over (blondes most of the time) and we do this in our spare time. It was supposed to launch in February really so we're a bit slow."

SuprNova.org, a well-known BitTorrent hub before being forced to shut down three years ago, is apparently making a comeback.

An agreement was reached that allows the operators of The Pirate Bay to use the domain name, according to reports published Thursday on blogs, TorrentFreak and Slyck.com.

Like The Pirate Bay, SuprNova helped users locate BitTorrent files of movies, TV shows, and books. It's believed that a large number of the files are copyright copies and scores of people from all over the world download them in violation of copyright law. Hollywood has accused such sites of encouraging piracy.

TorrentFreak reported that the new SuprNova will debut sometime in the next week. The Pirate Bay founders could not be reached for comment on Thursday.

Like the name suggests, Suprnova was white hot with file sharers before flaming out in Dec. 2004. Founded in Slovenia in late 2000 by Andrej Preston, SuprNova's popularity paralleled the rise of BitTorrent as a file-swapping tool.

The site went dark following worldwide legal action by the Motion Picture Association of America.

Since SuprNova's closure, file sharing has continued to grow despite the MPAA's legal efforts.

Preston told Slyck that he gave permission to The Pirate Bay founders to use the SuprNova domain under the condition that they preserve the "community spirit."

"I'm going to go study abroad, actually in film industry and I do not want to be associated with it anymore," Preston said according to Slyck. "I still support the whole concept of piracy and I believe it's the next step in media revolution, but I do not have the time for it anymore."

There has always been plenty of bitterness between copyright holders and the file-sharing community, but some now contend hostilities have sunk to a new low.

Swedish authorities last week were preparing to shut down The Pirate Bay, according to Peter Sunde, one of the site's founders. Was the site facing closure for helping users find bootlegged music or video files, as the film and music industries have long alleged? No, The Pirate Bay was being accused of distributing child pornography, Sunde said.

The accusation was nothing more than a backdoor attempt to kill off The Pirate Bay since both Sweden and the United States have failed to close the site for allegedly violating copyright law, Sunde claimed in a phone interview with CNET News.com on Monday. Following a wave of media attention over the weekend, Sweden's government has apparently backed down. Sunde quoted from an e-mail sent by a government official that notified the site's operators they would not be accused of distributing porn.

"The government is angry at us because they can't shut us down," Sunde said. "Now they are trying to ruin our reputations."

Sunde called the allegations against the site "unsettling." He worries that the incident might signal a new willingness by the forces warring against copyright infringement to use smear tactics. Swedish authorities could not be reached for comment.

Regardless of whether Sweden was actually trying to close The Pirate Bay, the incident illustrates just how much the file-sharing community distrusts and fears the lobbying groups that represent the film and music industries. A torrent site can't be slow to load anymore without users suspecting Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) sabotage.

Some of the paranoia may be exacerbated by the entertainment industry's string of recent victories over file sharing.

TorrentSpy, a U.S.-based BitTorrent search engine is fighting a court order to turn over user information to the MPAA. The site's owners have indicated that they would cease operating in the U.S. rather than hand over the data. In what was seen by many as a capitulation to the MPAA, TorrentSpy and competitor IsoHunt both agreed last month to filter copyright material.

At the request of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the U.S. government's efforts to convince Russia to close AllofMP3.com, a music site that sold unprotected music files without the authorization of record labels, appears to have worked. The site went dark last week, although the operators have apparently reopened under a new name, according to reports.

Another factor is the allegation made by TorrentSpy in a lawsuit filed against the MPAA last year. TorrentSpy claims that the group hired a hacker to crack the company's servers and steal TorrentSpy's trade secrets. The MPAA has denied the accusation.

These are the kind of things that keeps file sharers and some site operators looking over their shoulders.

"I'm very concerned about the (child porn accusations)," Sunde said. "But I'm not frightened. People know this is only a tactic on their part to hurt us.

"I don't think it stops here," he added. "I think it's only going to be worse. We have a fight coming."

Reuters is reporting that Sweden's Justice Ministry proposed legislation on Monday that if passed would give copyright holders the right to demand that Internet Service Providers turn over names of suspected file sharers.

We could soon learn more about whether illegal file sharing is a friend or foe to a movie debut.

Sicko, the documentary about the health-care industry from director Michael Moore is due to be released on Friday. To several thousand fans of YouTube, Google Video and The PirateBay, the movie's opening came a week earlier. That's when bootleg copies began cropping up at those places.

Any studio exec will say each illegal download represents a lost ticket sale. That's food out of the mouths of cinematographers, actors, costumers and best boys, the studio suit will huff.

Not so, say those that download. Typically their argument goes something like this: The Internet promotes movies like nothing else. People who really enjoy a film they watch online will often plunk down cash for a DVD or movie ticket. True film fans want high quality copies for their video libraries and also put a premium on the big-screen experience.

I believe some of that. I'm a movie buff and if I like a film I see in the theater I'll pick up the DVD. But what many in Hollywood are skeptical about is whether the masses will pay for something that they can get for free.

Over the next week or so, I'm planning to keep tabs on how Sicko does at the box office as well as track the number of unauthorized copies being shared. The goal of course is to learn whether illegal downloads actually depress ticket sales.

Some anecdotal evidence already indicates that they don't.

First, the controversy over the pirated copies that appeared last weekend generated plenty of headlines for Sicko. Nobody associated with the movie is going to be distressed about that. On the sites where the bootlegs appeared scores of comments were posted and that's the kind of word-of-mouth promotion marketers love.

And what about Moore's controversial film, Fahrenheit 9/11? Despite being widely pirated, the movie's $119 million in U.S. ticket sales made it the highest grossing documentary of all time.

Moore himself sides with the bootleggers.

"I don't agree with the copyright laws," Moore said during a press conference three years ago. "I don't have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it as long as they aren't doing it to make a profit off my labor. I would oppose that."

Not every artist sees it the same way, of course. Certainly, the people who bankrolled Moore's latest picture don't.

"We at the Weinstein Company (the movie's producer) are outraged by illegal piracy," said Peter Hurwitz, the company's general counsel, in a statement.

As for tracking the film's progress, here's the tally so far: over the weekend, the copies of Sicko that appeared at YouTube and Google Video were viewed over 1,000 times before they were removed. At the PirateBay and Mininova, copies have been downloaded more than four thousand times combined. If you know about any other sites, please feel free to pass them along.

The Pirate Bay, a BitTorrent file tracking site based in Sweden, hinted in a blog post on Friday that it has begun navigating the high seas of streaming video. The site had been hyping up a "surprise" in recent weeks, and still won't give much detail, but it has confirmed that it is indeed a video project. "As a treat I can tell you--YES--we're going to do a video streaming site," the blog post wrote. "It's true. It's in the works being done right now and as usual we put a bit of Pirate Bay mentality behind every project we do." Yo-ho-ho and a series of tubes, indeed.

The news was then reported on Mashable.

The Pirate Bay made headlines in February when it announced plans to purchase its own sovereign state as a way to flee its legal problems. (It was a plan so wacky and convoluted, you'd think Captain Jack Sparrow were at the helm.) However, that endeavor has since been buried, walked the plank, been sent to Davy Jones' locker, or some other sickeningly corny reference to pirates that means "scrapped."