TorrentFreak

In response to a court order handed down at the end of April, today TalkTalk became the latest UK ISP to block subscriber access to The Pirate Bay. But even with this action the Europe-wide wave of blocking orders isn’t letting up. This morning yet another European court ruled that in order to protect rightholders, two more ISPs should prevent their customers from accessing the site.

A trio of Court of Appeal judges are expected to give their ruling today as to whether a decision by the High Court supporting the controversial Digital Economy Act can be overturned. BT and TalkTalk, two of the country’s largest ISPs, had objected to the legislation claiming it breached EU directives. Today, however, they find themselves in a new controversy.

The popular cloud gaming service OnLive has been active in the U.S. for more than a year, and last week it launched in the U.K. OnLive works by rendering and storing games on remote servers, which are then streamed to users’ computers or TVs. It appears though, that not all ISPs were prepared for the launch as P2P throttling systems also make it impossible to play OnLive games.

One of the UK’s largest ISPs has today launched a new set of network-level security features aimed at protecting subscribers’ children and their computers. While reports of HomeSafe’s ability to block access to viruses, pornography and violent content has been widespread today, it also has another trick up its sleeve – the blocking of BitTorrent and other file-sharing sites.

Following complaints from two of the country’s largest ISPs, last month the High Court began its judicial review of the Digital Economy Act, the legislation put in place in the UK to deal with illicit file-sharing. Today the High Court almost completely rejected the challenge by BT and TalkTalk, with the ISPs winning only a slight concession on costs.

Two of the UK’s leading Internet service providers are teaming up to challenge the Digital Economy Act. TalkTalk and BT say they want the High Court to examine whether the Act, which was rushed through before the recent general election, was passed without going through the correct parliamentary procedures.

This week the condemnation of file-sharing “legal blackmail” lawyers ACS:Law has been widespread, with extremely harsh words coming from the country’s House of Lords. Despite this the law firm are unrepentant and say they will persist with their campaign. It is, however, possible to immunize your family from this growing threat.