Film Industry Orders BT To Block File-Sharing Site

The Motion Picture Association, which represents Hollywood studios outside the US, has filed an injunction against BT, requiring it to block access to Newzbin2 – an offshore website that offers access to pirated content via its Usenet indexing service.

The MPA’s move represents a new tactic being used by copyright owners to protect their property rights and force British ISPs to crack down on Internet piracy. It is using Section 97A of the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, which provides for possible injunctions against Internet intermediaries.

“In launching this case, the MPA is aiming to secure an order that will enable BT to block Internet access to the site, thus preventing the site from using the Internet to make money through infringement,” said an MPA spokesperson.

BT has confirmed the situation but chose not to comment at this stage.

Newzbin bounces back

Newzbin has been a pioneer of searches of the Internet’s venerable Usenet newsgroup discussion forum system, creating technology such as NZB, an XML-based file format which allows faster searching of the vast quantities of Usenet content online.

Earlier this year, the MPA won a high court copyright infringement case against the original Newzbin website, which was ordered to pay damages and filter out all links to pirated films and TV shows owned by the companies represented by the MPA. Following this ruling, the operator of the site, Newzbin Ltd, went into administration.

However, a clone of the site – dubbed Newzbin2 – emerged on the net soon after, hosted in Sweden and apparently registered in the US. Newzbin2 is run by a group called Team R Dogs, according to TorrentFreak, and the owners of Newzbin claim to have nothing to do with the new site.

The MPA has succeeded in using the EU’s Copyright Directive to force ISPs to block sites involved in distributing pirated content in Denmark and there are also cases pending in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium.

Digital Economy Act

Under the terms of the UK’s Digital Economy Act, ISPs could be expected to hand over the IP addresses of anyone caught committing online copyright infringement to rights holders. However, opposition to the Digital Economy Act is strong, with ISPs and rights activists alike complaining that the Act’s measures did not receive sufficient scrutiny when the bill was passing through Parliament.

Copyright owners received a knock-back in October, when a High Court judge in Ireland ruled that the practice of temporarily disconnecting illegal file-sharers from the Internet could not be legally enforced in the country.

The ruling came after five major record companies – EMI Records (Ireland), Sony Music Entertainment Ireland, Universal Music Ireland, Warner Music Ireland and WEA International Inc – brought an action against Internet service provider UPC, intended to compel the ISP to enforce a “three strikes” rule, culminating in illegal file-sharers being disconnected from the Internet.

Meanwhile, British anti-copyright group, Pirate Party UK, has predicted that Ofcom’s draconian file-sharing proposals would give rise to a new wave of “Pirate ISPs”. These would take advantage of a loophole in the proposed code – which exempts small ISPs with less than 400,000 users from the rules – in order to allow users to share files anonymously online.

The European Commission is currently looking into creating an EU-wide copyright law, dealing specifically with the issue of Internet piracy.