High Court orders further website blocking

The High Court has issued Orders requiring the six largest UK ISPs (BT, Sky, Virgin Media, EE, TalkTalk and 02) to block access to two illegal streaming sites, SolarMovie and Tubeplus.

These sites provide access to a wide variety of copyright infringing TV and film content without permission from rights holders. Lord Justice Arnold November 13 issued a written verdict ruling that these sites directly infringe copyright, stating that, “viewed from the perspective of the user, the Websites do in a very real sense make the content available to the public.”

The High Court October 2013 also issued orders requiring UK ISPs to block access to five other illegal websites which failed to remove copyright infringing material. These sites are: Yify-Torrents, Project-Free TV, Primewire, Vodly and Watchfreemovies.

ISPs are required to block these sites no later than the end of November and the blocks against SolarMovie and Tubeplus will be required by early December.

Blocking orders have previously been issued against streaming sites in the UK but this is the first time that a written verdict has been issued alongside the blocking order.

The High Court made the judgement based on the law as well as the evidence provided. The Judge had to be satisfied that blocking was appropriate and proportionate in the circumstances.

Source: http://cablequest.org/news/international-news/item/3553-high-court-orders-further-website-blocking.htmlSource: http://cablequest.org/news/international-news/item/3553-high-court-orders-further-website-blocking.html