1 October 2011Copyright

High Court orders ISP to block website

A UK High Court Justice has ordered an ISP to block access to a file-sharing website that allows users to unlawfully access the copyrighted works of major films and television programmes.

The Hon Justice Richard Arnold made the decision in Twentieth Century Fox Film et al v British Telecommunications in the High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, on July 28.

The case follows on from a 2010 High Court decision in which Newzbin Ltd, the previous operator of www.newzbin.com, was found liable for the copyright infringement committed by its users.

Newzbin Ltd then went into voluntary liquidation and ceased operating the website. But www.newzbin.com soon re-emerged, as a different, unknown and offshore operator moved in to take over.

As this operator was outside UK court jurisdiction, film studios, including Warner Brothers and Disney, sought an injunction against the UK’s biggest ISP, British Telecommunications (BT).

They wanted the court to force BT to block access to the Newzbin website using a capability that it possesses to block access to pornographic content.

Under Section 97(a) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, Justice Arnold said that BT had “actual knowledge” of the infringing conduct of its subscribers.

He said: “[I]t knows that the users and operators of Newzbin2 infringe copyright on a large scale, and in particular infringe the copyrights of the Studios in large numbers of their films and television programmes, it knows that the users of Newzbin2 include BT subscribers, and it knows that those users use its service to receive infringing copies of copyright works made available to them by Newzbin2.”

Ordering the injunction, Justice Arnold said that its effectiveness did not matter because it “would be justified even if it only prevented access to Newzbin2 by a minority of users”.

Nicholas Lansman, secretary general of the Internet Services Providers’ Association, said: “[C]oncerns about over-blocking, ease of circumvention and increased encryption are widely recognised which means that blocking is not a silver bullet to stop online copyright infringement. Rather, as the Government-commissioned Hargreaves Review recently found, there should be more focus by the creative industries on offering innovative, fully-licensed content services to give consumers what they are clearly demanding.”

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