High Court Order BT To Block Access To Newzbin 2 Website

The website provides links to pirated movies

• The High Court judge ruled that BT must block access to Newzbin 2.
• The website provides links to pirated movies.
• The website is a members only site.
• Newzbin 2 aggregates huge amount of illegally copied material.
• The material is found on Usenet discussion forums.
• This is the first time that an Internet Service Provider has been told to block access to such site.
• Other sites may now be blocked in a crackdown on piracy.
• Mr Justice Arnold made the decision.
• He said, "In my judgment it follows that BT has actual knowledge of other persons using its service to infringe copyright: it knows that the users and operators of Newzbin 2 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 Newzbin 2 include BT subscribers, and it knows those users use its service to receive infringing copies of copyright works made available to them by Newzbin 2."
• Motion Picture Association (MPA) brought the case to court.
• BT and MPA will be back at court in October to work out how the blocking will happen.
• BT is not going to appeal the ruling.
• Warner, Disney and Fox are all represented by the MPA.
• MPA say "This court action was never an attack on ISPs but we do need their co-operation to deal with the Newzbin site which continually tries to evade the law and judicial sanction. Newzbin is a notorious pirate website which makes hundreds of thousands of copyrighted products available without permission and with no regard for the law."
• The MPA intend to target other Internet Service Providers.
• Newzbin 2 has gained in popularity as traditional peer to peer methods are drawing to a close.
• BT’s blocking technology called CleanFeed will be used.
• This technology is currently used to prevent access to websites showing child sexual abuse.
• Newzbin 2 has threatened to break BT’s filters.
• The case against Newzbin was brought under the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act.