UPD Virgin Media and BT UK Begin Censorship of 3 Internet Piracy Websites

BT, Virgin Media and other ISPs have officially started blocking their broadband customers from being able to access three websites – Fenopy, H33t and Kickass Torrents – that were last month found by London’s High Court to be facilitating internet piracy (copyright infringement).

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI), which represents the United Kingdom’s music industry, secured a court ordered injunction against the three websites in February 2013 (here) by using Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.

The ruling meant that BT (PlusNet), Virgin Media, Sky Broadband, O2 (BE Broadband), TalkTalk and EE would all eventually be forced to block the websites and using the same filtering methods as had been previously been employed to censor The Pirate Bay and Newzbin2.

A Statement from VirginMedia said:

“We and all other large ISPs received an order from the courts last month requiring us to prevent access to Fenopy, H33t and KickAssTorrents. As a responsible ISP, we operate within the clear, legal framework put in place to protect against copyright infringement and we continue to comply with court orders addressed to us.”

As usual the other ISPs are expected to follow suit, if they haven’t already, over the course of the next few days, weeks or months and we wouldn’t be surprised to see several more websites targeted like this in the near future (example). ISPreview.co.uk understands that O2 (BE Broadband) has also begun imposing the block.

However any block imposed by an ISP will only ever be skin deep and easy to circumvent (VPN, Proxy Servers etc.).

UPDATE 7:46am

We note that Sky Broadband connections now also appear to be imposing the block.