The Pirate Bay: Court Orders ISPs To Block Access To The P2P Torrent Site in Ireland
http://www.ibtimes.com/pirate-bay-court-orders-isps-block-access-p2p-torrent-site-ireland-1303629
An Irish court has ordered six Internet service providers, or ISPs, to block subscriber access to The Pirate Bay. According to the Irish Times, a complaint from four record labels will lead to blocked access in Ireland within the next 30 days.
ISPs Digiweb, Hutchison 3G Ltd, Imagine, Telefonica O2 Ireland Ltd, UPC and Vodaphone were all named in the complaint. It alleged that 200,000 people, or 8 percent of Ireland’s Internet users, were accessing The Pirate Bay to download torrents and obtain music, movies and TV illegally every month.
The record companies claimed that illegal file-sharing through peer-to-peer, or P2P technology, has devastated the music industry and been an issue for them as well as their artists, employees and music retailers. Eircom, another Irish ISP, has voluntary blocked subscriber access to The Pirate Bay.
Justice Brian McGovern said Wednesday that new copyright laws in Ireland and the European Union meant that orders blocking illegal file-sharing sites were legal.
The four companies, EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner Music won't have to take out new suits in court to block The Pirate Bay if the torrent site creates new URLs or otherwise tries to avoid the blocks, but they will have to “meet the costs of blocking” The Pirate Bay’s family of websites.
The ISPs didn't disagree with the court order but raised issues about overblocking or accidentally blocking subscriber access to sites that didn't share illegal content.
