Court Orders UK ISPs to Block Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay “destroys jobs,” says the British Phonographic Industry.

Last November, the British Phonographic Industry (or BPI) asked a number of UK-based ISPs – Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media – to voluntarily restrict access to the Sweden-based Pirate Bay. The ISPs in question refused to do so unless there was a court order mandating the action; the BPI then sought (and obtained) said order in a ruling handed down today.

“Sites like The Pirate Bay destroy jobs in the UK and undermine investment in new British artists,” said a BPI statement. The group’s CEO, Geoff Taylor, praised the High Court’s ruling as a landmark in efforts to combat piracy. “[The Pirate Bay’s] operators line their pockets by commercially exploiting music and other creative works without paying a penny to the people who created them … This is wrong – musicians, sound engineers and video editors deserve to be paid for their work just like everyone else.”

Taylor’s statement was rebutted in a statement from Pirate Party UK – a British spinoff of the original Swedish political movement – and its leader Loz Kaye, who denied that the move would put “any extra pennies into the pockets of artists.”

“Unfortunately, the move to order blocking on The Pirate Bay comes as no surprise,” said Kaye. “The truth is that we are on a slippery slope towards internet censorship here in the United Kingdom.”

Virgin Media told the BBC that it would comply with the High Court’s order, but said that such brute-force measures would not curb piracy in the long run, and that consumers needed legal alternatives to current models. “As a responsible ISP, Virgin Media complies with court orders addressed to the company but strongly believes that changing consumer behaviour to tackle copyright infringement also needs compelling legal alternatives, such as our agreement with Spotify, to give consumers access to great content at the right price.”

(BBC)