British ISP Ordered To Block Links to Pirate Site 157
An anonymous reader writes "A UK High Court judge has ruled that BT must block access to a website which provides links to pirated movies. Justice Arnold ruled that BT must use its blocking technology CleanFeed — which is currently used to prevent access to websites featuring child sexual abuse — to block Newzbin 2. 'Currently CleanFeed is dealing with a small, rural road in Scotland,' ISPA council member James Blessing told BBC Radio 4's PM programme. 'Trying to put Newzbin and other sites into the same blocking technology would be a bit like shutting down the M1. It is not designed to do that.' Digital rights organisation the Open Rights Group said the result could set a "dangerous" precedent. "Website blocking is pointless and dangerous. These judgements won't work to stop infringement or boost creative industries. And there are serious risks of legitimate content being blocked and service slowdown. If the goal is boosting creators' ability to make money from their work then we need to abandon these technologically naive measures, focus on genuine market reforms, and satisfy unmet consumer demand," said ORG campaigner Peter Bradwell."
Re:Love it (Score:4, Informative)
But of course, anyone that really cares would use a VPN and this wouldn't affect them in the first place.
Newzbin felt this coming on a long time ago and have set up their service on Tors .onion a while ago. I read about it a month or so ago, but I'm sure it's been up a good while longer.
It's quite pointless to do this, and it sets a dangerous precedent legally for using a filter in place to stop kiddy porn (equally useless for the same reason btw) to protect corporate interests. Insert your favourite slippery slope argument here.
Full text of judgment (Score:5, Informative)
is available on BAILII [bailii.org].
(BAILII - British and Irish Legal Information Institute - is a very valuable resource indeed, for lawyers and those who simply want to understand the laws affecting their lives. legislation.gov.uk is another useful resource.)