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More web-blocks instigated

By | Published on Friday 28 November 2014

BPI

Good news for fans of the line “Sorry, the web page you have requested is not available, we received an order from the Courts requiring us to prevent access to this site” (you’ve all got that on a t-shirt, right?).

The highest of all courts (apart from the higher ones) the High Court has issued another injunction ordering UK internet service providers (except, seemingly, the one we use, which blocks nothing) to stop their customers from accessing pesky copyright infringing file-sharing piracy sites, like BitSoup and Torrentfunk.

As much previously reported, in the UK – and some other jurisdictions – so called web-blocking has become a preferred tactic for the music and movie industries to try and stop people from accessing unlicensed sources of content. ISPs are forced to block sites deemed by the court to exist primarily to enable and encourage copyright infringement.

The problem, of course, is that there are plenty of sneaky tricks to be employed to circumvent all and any web-blocks, and a simple Google search for a blocked site usually guides people to their illegal content buckets of choice.

But rights owners hope that some users will stop accessing such services just by being alerted to their illegal status. Though everyone agrees that Google needs to be kicked into participating in this party for web-blocking of file-sharing sites to truly work. Record labels and movie studios are yet to find shoes big enough to kick the Google monolith, but they’re asking for a pair for Christmas.

The latest web-block injunction lists no less than 53 services, the biggest batch to be blocked in one sitting. 32 of the sites were named by the Motion Picture Association and the other 21 by record label trade group the BPI. According to the BBC, the latest court ruling brings the total number of blocked sites in the UK to 93.

The MPA’s Chris Marcich says: “Securing court orders requiring ISPs to block access to illegal websites is an accepted and legitimate measure to tackle online copyright infringement. It carefully targets sites whose sole purpose is to make money off the back of other people’s content while paying nothing back into the legitimate economy”.



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