Legal

High Court will rule next week on Newzbin case

By | Published on Thursday 30 June 2011

Newzbin2

The High Court has said it will rule next month on the previously reported application by the Motion Picture Association to force BT to block access to the Newzbin2 website, which is now run out of Sweden and which, the MPA says, aids rampant piracy of its content.

The music business is watching the case carefully because if the MPA is successful, it could open the door for other content owners to seek injunctions against other ISPs in relation to all sorts of other copyright infringing websites. One of the on-hold provisions of the Digital Economy Act specifically set out such an injunctions system, but if the MPA wins, the precedent will be set that such injunctions can be secured under existing copyright law, albeit through a possibly less time efficient route.

As previously reported, BT says that if the court sides with the MPA on this case it will open the flood gates for a barrage of injunction claims.

Having heard arguments from both sides this week, the judge hearing the case, Richard Arnold, said he would make a formal judgement on or soon after 12 Jul, after considering some further written submissions.



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