Following a court order last week, UK ISP Sky has quietly blocked access to file sharing portal Newzbin2 – preventing its users from utilizing the site. This comes following a landmark High Court decision earlier this year in which BT was forced to block access to the site.
It was always likely that other ISPs would follow BT’s lead and start blocking access to the site, as the Motion Picture Association (MPA) who gained the injunction now have some precedent on their side – and the courts are unlikely to rule that only one ISP should block the site. A court order will likely suffice in getting most ISPs to block the site if requested. In a statement Sky said:
We have received a court order requiring us to block access to this illegal website, which we did on 13th December, 2011…As and when clear and legally robust evidence of copyright theft is presented, we will take appropriate action in respect to site blocking, which will include complying with court orders
Unlike the BT case, no filtering technology appears to have been named to be used by Sky to block the site, and whilst both Virgin Media and Talk Talk (the other two major UK ISPs) were contacted by the MPA in November, they are yet to receive a court order ordering them to start filtering the website, and so have not started doing so.
[via Out-Law]