UK Court Forces Big Broadband ISPs to Block 8 Internet Video Piracy Sites

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPA) has convinced the High Court to force all of the major broadband ISPs in the United Kingdom (BT, Sky Broadband, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, EE etc.) to block 8 additional websites that were found to facilitate Internet copyright infringement (piracy).

The MPA first made a request for ISPs to voluntarily block the sites, which is traditionally refused because there needs to some legal ground for imposing default blocks. Failing that the Rights Holder launched an injunction against the providers, which succeeded in harnessing Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (CDPA) to force ISPs into imposing a court ordered block.

The latest additions to the ever growing list, as confirmed by both Virgin Media (here) and Sky Broadband (here) this week, include eight websites that appear to be largely focused on giving people access to view unlawful video streams of copyright content.

The 8 New Website Blocks
Couchtuner
MerDB
Putlocker
Putlocker Plus
Rainierland
Vidics
Watchfree
Xmovies8

So far well over 100 websites have been blocked from the view of broadband subscribers via this approach, which isn’t even counting the many proxy clones and mirrors that are also covered by the rulings.

However such blocking does not come cheap and Wiggin LLP last year revealed that an unopposed application tends to cost around £14,000 per site. On top of that the additional admin required to maintain the block and keep ISPs up-to-date with related IP changes and new URLs (Proxy Servers) comes to around £3,600 per site per year.

Meanwhile ISPs also incur on-going costs as part of their work to introduce the blocks. EE previously suggested that a “near four figure sum” was involved with each update, while Sky Broadband hinted at a “mid three figure sum” and then roughly half that for future updates. Similarly Virgin Media pegged their own annual costs at a “low five figure sum“.

On the flip side such blocks don’t always stop the targeted websites and indeed they may even help to advertise their existence. But those who engage in Internet Piracy will easily be able to circumvent the restrictions by using all sorts of different approaches, such as DNS changes, HTTPS, Proxy Servers or Virtual Private Network (VPN) connections.