BREIN v. Ziggo: The Pirate Bay Dies Again

The Pirate Bay (TPB), that perennial nemesis of copyright holders, is on the ropes again following the CJEU's decision this week in BREIN v. Ziggo. BREIN, the Dutch entertainment industry trade group, sued two ISPs—Ziggo and XS4ALL—seeking a court order to compel them to block the domain names and IP addresses of the legendary torrent sharing site. The Supreme Court of the Netherlands referred two questions to the CJEU: (1) whether TPB’s operation of a searchable index of torrent files violates copyright holders’ right of communication to the public under Article 3(1) of the EU InfoSoc Directive; and (2), in the event that it does, whether the requested injunctions are appropriate against intermediaries under Article 8(3) of the InfoSoc Directive and Article 11 of the IPR Enforcement Directive. This post will focus on the first question, concerning TPB’s liability for unauthorized “communication to the public.”