Communications and networking provider Entanet has today praised last week's decision by Ofcom, which effectively axed the UK governments plan to force every broadband ISP in the country into blocking websites that are deemed by Rights Holders to facilitate internet copyright infringement (piracy).

Ofcom ruled that the measures, which were a key part of the Digital Economy Act (DEA), would "as they stand ... not be effective". The outcome came just a few short days after the London High Court of Justice forced BT to use its child sexual abuse filter, Cleanfeed, to block access to a pirate website known as Newzbin (Newzbin2).


It's worth remembering that the UK government's efforts to design a new Voluntary Code of Practice for website blocking (i.e. "Plan B") originally came about because the regulator, Ofcom, had hinted that its review would not directly support their intended solution.

Meanwhile the court's decision against BT was a complicated one and very much specific to that particular providers setup and its existing use of Cleanfeed. Most of the big mainstream providers also use similar technology and will now need to follow suit. Still, as Entanet suggests, doing this for every website you want blocked would be very tedious.

Sadly there are still many roadblocks with the voluntary solution too, not least with the ever present burden of cost (who pays?) and the need for an impartial judge to asses each case properly. The government, ISPs and Rights Holders will meet again this month to discuss the latest proposals.

Some sources indicate that the final code could be watered down to exclude public networks (e.g. libraries but not hotel wi-fi) and ensure that only the most deliberately infringing sites (i.e. not YouTube or Google) are targeted.