UK ISPs block 21 websites in new bid to combat online piracy

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The latest measures to combat digital piracy in the UK come into force today with a court order from BPI asking ISPs to block 21 sites that link to infringing material.

"We asked the sites to stop infringing copyright but unfortunately they did not and we were left with little choice but to apply to the court, where the judge considered the evidence and declared that ISPs should not serve access to them," said BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor.

The list of sites includes the likes of 1337x, Monova, and Rapidlibrary. Some sites being blocked such as Torrentz.eu and FilesTube host neither infringing material nor .torrent files but act as search catalogues for other sites.

Blocking sites via ISPs is considered by the BPI and other copyright holders to be a more effective method of combatting piracy than targeting individuals via warnings and data throttling – the tactics favoured by the Digital Economy Act 2010.

A recent study of illegal downloads in the UK described piracy as a “minority activity” with two per cent of internet users accounting for around three quarters (74 per cent) of the volume of total downloads.

However, this does not mean that piracy is not a common practice –the Ofcom-backed study also indicated that more than half of all internet users (58 per cent) either downloaded or streamed at least one illegally during the past year.

See below for a full list of sites blocked in the UK by the new measures: