O2 and Be Broadband are the latest UK ISPs to block The Pirate Bay in the UK. Be Broadband has already started blocking access to the bittorrent tracker, with O2, which owns Be’s network, starting its block “overnight tonight, implemented tomorrow.”
O2 and Be Broadband, along with BT, Sky, Virgin Media, TalkTalk and Everything Everywhere (Orange and T-Mobile) were issued a court order earlier this year, requiring them to restrict access to www.thepiratebay.se.
Be customers trying to access the site will now see something like this:
The Pirate Bay, long a thorn in the side of the big content providers, doesn’t actually host any copyrighted content itself, rather acts as a torrent tracker, a way for people to illegally download as much music, movies and games as they like. Though search engines such as Google ostensibly do this as well, this argument hasn’t cut any mustard with media bigwigs who want to see the pirates sunk.
So far, Sky, Virgin Media and TalkTalk have complied with the court order, as has Everything Everywhere, which owns Orange’s Home Broadband service.
There’s been no response from The Pirate Bay itself yet, but the group is usually pretty vocal about such news. A DDoS attack, for which Anonymous claimed responsibility, took Virgin Media’s site offline following its Pirate Bay block. Sky recently shuttered the Pirate Bay but as of yet hasn’t been hit by a DDoS broadside.
Like putting a single traffic cone in the middle of a very wide road
While blocking access to the Pirate Bay’s site will undoubtedly dent visits, it won’t totally stop those committed to getting their hands on teh free contentz. The Pirate Bay has been busy posting ways to get round the blocks.
BT has yet to make a move on the pirates, but it’s thought that the UK’s biggest ISP has something more comprehensive in store than a simple URL block. BT has remained cagey on its plans but told us it’ll “go further than we have done before with different additional technical measures to block the site.”
ISPs issued with the court order are required to restrict access to The Pirate Bay by whatever degree by the 13th of June.
UPDATE: O2 forwarded us the following statement:
“The main UK internet providers were ordered by the high court to block access to specific IP address and URLs used by The Pirate Bay website. We had no option but to comply with this order and will be doing so overnight.”
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