On May 5, the Prime Minister issued Official Dispatch No. 38/CD-TTg on focusing on directing the drastic implementation of solutions to fight, prevent, and handle acts of intellectual property rights infringement.
The telegram clearly states that the Ministry of Public Security shall preside over and coordinate with relevant ministries and agencies to focus on verifying, investigating, and prosecuting a number of cases of serious infringement of copyright, related rights, trademarks and geographical indications in accordance with legal regulations;
Cracking down on websites and organizations operating websites that infringe on online copyright with large traffic, especially websites that store and provide movies, music, mobile electronic games, illegal TV shows using Vietnamese and foreign languages, especially English.
According to Lao Dong reporters' investigation, in the world, many countries have carried out large-scale crackdowns and trials of individuals and organizations violating copyright. Among them, the Swedish Pirate Bay raid is one of the notable examples.
The Pirate Bay is one of the largest online copyright lawsuits in history, reflecting the prolonged confrontation between the entertainment industry and data sharing platforms on the internet. The website was founded in 2003 in Sweden by members of the Piratbyrån organization, acting as a tool providing "torrent" files and "magnet" links, allowing users to download copyrighted content such as movies, music, games and software for free via peer-to-peer networks.
The Pirate Bay's operating method is based on providing "torrent" files and "magnet" links, which are instructions sets that help computers load and paste data partitions from various sources. Thanks to this distributed mechanism, data loading becomes faster and does not rely on a central server.
The website does not directly store content, but maintains a database of link files posted by users. This is also the basis for the operating side to argue that they do not directly infringe copyright.
However, film and music studios believe that this platform has facilitated the illegal distribution of a series of works, causing billions of USD in damage. Pressure from the entertainment industry, including the involvement of the US government through trade warnings, led to a Swedish police raid in May 2006.
Functional forces seized many servers and equipment, and at the same time arrested related individuals. However, only 3 days later, The Pirate Bay resumed operation and attracted more traffic thanks to media attention.
In 2009, the Stockholm District Court tried 4 chief executives including Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundstrom. All 4 were sentenced to about 1 year in prison and had to compensate 30 million SEK, equivalent to 3.6 million USD at the time, to major entertainment companies such as Warner Bros, Sony Music and Columbia Pictures. The subsequent appeals upheld the charges, adjusted the prison sentences of some people and increased the fines.
During the execution, some individuals fled and were internationally wanted before being arrested and extradited to Sweden. Although the founders suffered prison sentences, The Pirate Bay did not disappear. The website continuously changed its domain names, dispersed the server system and switched to using "magnet" links instead of storing traditional "torrent" files to minimize legal risks.
This case is considered a turning point in the fight against copyright infringement on the internet and led to strong measures from functional agencies afterwards.
