The IFPI, RIAA, MPAA, and their international allies have led a crusade against copyright infringement over the last decade, which has seen record million dollar verdicts handed down against citizens for essentially petty theft.  Now, even as they continue their lawsuits, they eagerly await gaining new sets of legislated tools thanks to the lobbyist money they've been pouring into governments worldwide.  

We previously detailed how the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, set to be debated by the U.S. Congress later this year, currently contains a new crime called "imminent infringement", which is essentially copyright thoughtcrime.

Now courts in the Netherlands have added speechcrime to that list, essentially ruling that is illegal to even talk or write about piracy.  The case began last year when Dutch movie studio Eyeworks sued a Usenet community FTD for "making public" their film Komt een vrouw bij de dokter (A Woman At The Doctor).

Typically "making public" means you uploaded a file and shared it.  In some cases, the definition has been extended to posting links to infringed material.  However, in this case FTD's users neither posted copyrighted material nor links to it, they merely would "spot" locations of various films on Usenet and post them to the group (sans-links).

In May, in Dutch Federal court in the Hague FTD was handed a defeat.  The court issued an "ex parte injunction" banning the site's users from "spotting" under threat of punishment.

The FTD's lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet filed an objection (appeal) to the court order.  That objection was heard last week and FTD lost yet again when Dutch court essentially ruled a second time that free speech did not cover talking about or writing about piracy.

Speaking with TorrentFreak Engelfriet voiced his frustration, stating, "I am flabbergasted by the court’s reasoning.  It is established case law that publishing hyperlinks or torrents (Mininova, Pirate Bay) is *not* the same as a publication. FTD does less than what Mininova or Pirate Bay does, but according to the court we are more liable than they are?"

The Judge supported his decision citing a case in England involving a Usenet service called Newzbin.  Engelfriet describes, "They say that FTD is doing the same thing, and since the English courts held Newzbin liable for infringement, FTD must be liable too.  This completely ignores the technical differences between Newzbin and FTD. Newzbin is an NZB search engine through which you find codes to directly download from Usenet. FTD is a forum where people ’spot’ movies using messages in ordinary Dutch."

The FTD's unsuccessful defense was that it did not control the servers the material was hosted on and hand no control over potential downloaders and thus was not "making available".  The court said this was inconsequential and that guilt would be determined by establishing "whether the behavior of FTD allows users to download copyrighted files (in an easier manner) and thus makes such files available to the public."  And the court found they did.

Tim Kuik, director of Dutch copyright protection group BREIN cheered the decision, stating, "This is a collaboration between FTD and its users where they knowingly provide access to unauthorized files.  It’s clear that this is more than just talking about files like FTD wants people to believe."

Brein is suing the FTD in a second court case.  That case will go to court in October.  Kuik wants to see FTD shut down entirely and taken off the internet.

FTD may soon have a bit of vengeance, though.  Dutch elections are this week, and due to decisions like this one and the Sweden's multi-million dollar verdict against the owners of The Pirate Bay, the Pirate Party is picking up steam.  Writes a party spokesperson, "When reaching landmark decisions that overturn years of jurisprudence, neither the judge nor the issue is served when it turns out that the judge in question is in business with the copyright-lawyer from the party benefiting from this shocking verdict. The fact that this joint enterprise mainly offers courses on 'counter-piracy' at €900 per day, makes the situation appear even muddier still. If the Netherlands wants to avoid looking like a banana-republic where the law is for sale to the highest bidder, it is urgent that parliament takes control of the debate on copyright-reform, and brings it back into the public arena where this discussion belongs."

It has been established that the judge serving on The Pirate Bay case was a member of copyright organizations and may have financially benefited from the decision.  The Pirate Bay admins are currently appealing the case, hoping for a more unbiased day in court.  Despite the seemingly liberal nature of the Netherlands it has been leading the way in copyright enforcement, banningThe Pirate Bay and other sites entirely.