Big UK ISPs Set to Block SolarMovie and Tubeplus Piracy Websites

The EMEA division of the Motion Picture Association (MPA) has successfully won fresh court orders from the High Court in London that will require all of the United Kingdom’s six biggest broadband ISPs to block their customers from accessing the SolarMovie and Tubeplus websites over “illegal” Internet streaming content.

The two sites join an increasingly long list of Internet piracy havens that have been aggressively targeted by Rights Holders, which only last month expanded dramatically to include 21 additional websites (here). As in previous cases the MPA is understood to have used Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act to impose the ban.

Chris Marcich, President of the MPA (EMEA), said (here):

“Legitimate content markets help everyone. We want an internet that works for everyone, where the creative property of artists and creators is protected along with the privacy and security of all users. The internet must be a place for investment, innovation and creativity and today’s verdict represents a step towards realizing this.”

Meanwhile critics of related Internet filtering (censorship) systems warn that such approaches remain easy to circumvent and may thus only serve to promote the existence of such websites.