After a court ordered two of the largest Belgian Internet service providers to prevent their users accessing The Pirate Bay, the local anti-piracy outfit is now urging other ISPs to do the same. Internet providers who refuse to give in to this request within 10 days will be taken to court, a threatening letter explains. The blackmailing tactic seems to have worked, as one of the smaller ISPs has already disabled access to The Pirate Bay.
Two weeks ago the Antwerp Court of Appeal ordered the Belgian ISPs Belgacom and Telenet to initiate DNS blockades of 11 domains connected to The Pirate Bay within 14 days or face fines. Today the 14 days expired and people who are trying to visit The Pirate Bay now see the following message. “You have [...]
Showing how futile Internet censorship can be, The Pirate Bay has registered a new domain name to allow Belgian users to access the site and bypass a recent court order. For just a few dollars, The Pirate Bay should now be fully accessible in the future, and the site has already started redirecting Belgian users to their new home.
A court in Belgium ruled that ISPs can be forced, and are obliged to, either block or filter copyright infringing content on P2P networks. Freedom of expression and privacy are not important in this regard. How exactly ISPs are supposed to block and filter copyrighted content remains a mystery.
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