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BT, Sky, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, EE and O2 handed order to block Kickass Torrents, Fenopy and H33T

The UK’s biggest ISPs, BT, Sky, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, EE and O2 have not contested a court order handed down today which will allow the BPI to enforce the blocking of three file sharing sites, Kickass Torrents, Fenopy and H33T. 

Access to the three file-sharing sites is expected to be blocked fairly soon after the Hon Mr Justice Arnold ruled they profited from infringement ‘on an industrial scale.’

The court ruling also reveals how the blocking of The Pirate Bay’s main URL – piratebay.se – last year, the site’s Alexa ranking had plummeted, despite measures being put in place not stopping the rot entirely.

BT, Sky, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, EE and O2 handed order to block Kickass Torrents, Fenopy and H33T
Read Recombu Digital’s report on UK ISPs blocking file sharing

The Open Rights Group has criticised the order, which does not detail which URLs the BPI will instruct BT and the gang to block. An ORG blog post warns that blocking URLs will “encourage new forms of distributed infringement” and may have the opposite effect.

BT, Sky, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, EE and O2 supply the majority of the UK’s customers with broadband services. They are not however the only ISPs in the country, so those wanting to carry on using Kickass Torrents and the like could take their business elsewhere.

There’s also concern from the ORG that as no block list has been made public, there’s a chance that “overblocking,” as has been the case with adult content filters may ensue and that the public’s interest has not been addressed in the proceedings at all. You can read the court ruling, supplied by 451wiki here.

While The Pirate Bay has suffered at the hands of the British ISP bans from last year, it hasn’t been sunk outright.

Earlier this week The Pirate Bay announced that it was setting sail from Sweden due to legal costs and would be setting up shop in Norway and Spain. Whether Kickass Torrents, Fenopy and H33T will result to some under the radar tactics remains to be seen – at the time of writing there’s been no public statement from any of the sites.
 

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