This is illustrated perfectly by the march towards large-scale website blocking in several regions around the world.

A topic pushed off the agenda in the United States following the SOPA debacle, web blockades are especially alive and well in Europe and living proof that while The Pirate Bay might the initial target of Hollywood and the record labels, much bigger plans have always been in store.

A typical example is now emerging in Austria. Having spent years trying to have streaming sites Kino.to, Kinox.to and Movie4K blocked at the ISP level, anti-piracy group VAP has just achieved its aims. Several key local ISPs began blocking the sites this month but the Hollywood affiliated group has now admitted that they’ve had bigger plans in mind all along.

Speaking with DerStandard, VAP CEO Werner Müller has confirmed that his group will now work to have large numbers of additional sites banned at the ISP level.

Using a term often used by Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN, Müller says his group has compiled a list of sites considered by the movie industry to be “structurally infringing”. The sites are expected to be the leaders in the torrent, linking and streaming sector, cyberlockers included. IFPI has already confirmed it will be dealing with The Pirate Bay and two other sites.

The VAP CEO wouldn’t be drawn on exact numbers, but did confirm that a “low three digit” number of domains are in the crosshairs for legal action.

Although Austria is in the relatively early stages, a similar situation has played out in the UK, with rightsholders obtaining blocks against some of the more famous sites and then streamlining the process to add new sites whenever they see fit. Dozens of sites are now unavailable by regular means.

If VAP has its way the blockades in Austria will be marginally more broad than those in the UK, affecting the country’s eighth largest service providers and affecting around 95% of subscribers.

Of course, whenever web blockades are mentioned the topic of discussion turns to circumvention. In Austria the blockades are relatively weak, with only DNS-based mitigation measures in place. However, VAP predicts the inevitable expansion towards both DNS and IP address blocking and intends to head off to court yet again to force ISPs to implement them.

Describing the Internet as a “great machine” featuring good and bad sides, Müller says that when ordering website blocks the courts will always appreciate the right to freedom of expression.

“But there’s no human right to Bruce Willis,” he concludes.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Most recently Austrian anti-piracy group VAP completed its mission to have two streaming sites – Movie4K and Kinox – blocked by local ISPs. The achievement was the culmination of years of work through the Austrian courts right through to the European Court of Justice and back again.

Several local ISPs (UPC, 3, Tele2 and A1) are now all blocking the sites and it’s widely expected that not only will VAP return for blocks of additional sites, but it will also be accompanied by recording group IFPI who will take on Pirate Bay and other sites.

In the meantime, however, the Austrian division of the Pirate Party is complaining loudly about what they view as web censorship. So today, just a few hours from now, they intend to give the Hollywood-affiliated group a small taste of their own medicine.

At 2pm Austrian time, party members and their supporters say they will descend on VAP headquarters in Vienna to air their opinions on blocking and other censorship measures. The organizers hope that their small offline ‘blockade’ will in some way mirror those experienced online.

Under the slogan “Block the Blocker”, the pirates say they will form their own symbolic obstruction outside Wiedner Hauptstrasse 63, 1040 Vienna, to raise awareness of why web filtering is highly problematic and useless for protecting artists. It’s a position broadly shared by several political parties in Austria including the Greens.

Of course, the pirates won’t be able to fully block access to VAP’s building, since that would be against the law. However, if they did manage to achieve that somehow – even unintentionally – VAP employees could simply enter their workplace through another entrance, or perhaps an adjoining building.

And with Kinox now circumventing the ISP blockade after adding a new .TV domain, there won’t be a pirate present today who doesn’t appreciate that irony.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

However, just a month before Kino.to was dismantled, Austrian ISP ‘UPC’ was served with a preliminary injunction ordering it to block subscriber access to the site. The order had been obtained by the Hollywood-affiliated anti-piracy group VAP but it was called into doubt by the ISP. This led to the Austrian Supreme Court referring the matter to the European Court of Justice.

Earlier this year the ECJ handed down its widely publicized decision which stated that yes, in reasonable circumstances, pirate sites can indeed be blocked by European ISPs.

On the back of this ruling, VAP subsequently wrote to several local ISPs (UPC, 3, Tele2 and A1) demanding blockades of Movie4K.to and Kinox.to, a site that took over from Kino.to. This would become the test case on which all future blockades would be built.

When this formal request for the ISPs to block the sites was rejected, in August VAP sued the providers. And now, after more than three years of wrangling, VAP have finally got their way.

In a ruling handed down yesterday by the Commercial Court of Vienna, UPC, 3, Tele2 and A1 were ordered to block Movie4K and Kinox with immediate effect. According to Der Standard, UPC and A1 placed blocks on the sites within hours, with 3 and Tele2 expected to comply with the injunction today.

But while another important hurdle has now been overcome, there is some way to go before VAP will have achieved everything they initially set out to do. At issue now is how far the ISPs will have to go in order to comply with the court order. It’s understood that VAP requires DNS and IP address blocking at a minimum, but whether the ISPs intend to comply with that standard remains to be seen.

It’s important for VAP, and other anti-piracy groups waiting in the wings, that these technical steps are workable going forward. Both VAP and the IFPI have lists of sites they would like blocked in the same way as Movie4K and Kinox have been, so it’s crucial to them that blockades aren’t easily circumvented.

Once this issue has been dealt with, in the next few months it’s likely that attention will turn to legal action being planned by the IFPI. The recording group has taken on the task of having torrent sites blocked in Austria, starting off with The Pirate Bay, isoHunt.to, 1337x.to and H33t.to.

IFPI is expected to sue several ISPs in the hope that local courts will treat torrent sites in the same way as they have streaming services. Once that’s been achieved – and at this stage it seems likely – expect long lists of additional domains to be submitted to the courts.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Just a month before Kino.to was dismantled in June 2011, Austrian ISP ‘UPC’ was served with a preliminary injunction ordering it to block subscriber access to the site. Verein für Anti-Piraterie der österreichischen Film und Videobranche (VAP) – the anti-piracy association of the Austrian film and video industry – had been on the warpath since 2010 and had finally got their way after UPC refused to comply voluntarily.

But would blocking the site be legal? UPC insisted that it couldn’t be held responsible for a site it had nothing to do with. The ISP also maintained that there had been no court ruling determining that UPC customers who accessed Kino.to were breaking the law.

To settle the matter once and for all the Austrian Supreme Court asked the European Court of Justice to clarify whether a company that provides Internet access to people using an illegal website could be required to block that site. On March 27, 2014, the ECJ handed down its decision.

On UPC’s first point the Court said that EU law does not require a specific relationship between the person infringing copyright and the intermediary against whom any injunction had been issued. On the second point the Court said that proof of illegality was not necessary as the law exists not only to bring an end to infringement, but also to prevent it.

The key point of the ruling was that ISPs can indeed be required to block access to infringing sites provided that injunctions are both balanced and proportional. As a result, earlier this month Austria’s Supreme Court found that the blockade against Kino.to, even though the site is long dead, was correctly applied.

On the back of this ruling, this week VAP wrote to several local ISPs, UPC included, demanding a new blockade of three domains – ThePirateBay.se, Movie4K.to and Kinox.to, a site that took over from Kino.to.

“Letters dated yesterday have been sent to four large ISPs containing a request to block a small number of websites,” VAP Managing Director Werner Müller told Future Zone.

On behalf of three local movie companies (Allegro Film, Wega Film and Epo Film) VAP has requested IP address and DNS blocks of the three sites but has given the ISPs very little time in which to carry them out, by this Friday August 1, to be exact.

The Association of Internet Service Providers Austria (ISPA) feels the deadline is far too restrictive.

“The period given to the providers to act is ludicrously short. We see this as very problematic. Extreme pressure is being exerted,” Secretary General Maximilian Schubert said.

“Two working days during the holiday season is just too little. To implement this by Friday we deem too difficult.”

Interestingly, Schubert also sees differences between The Pirate Bay and the pair of streaming portals listed in VAP’s blocking request.

“There is also legal content on The Pirate Bay,” Schubert said.

Discussions between VAP and the ISPs are scheduled for later in the week, so whether the anti-piracy group will get its way immediately will remain to be seen. They’ve waited years already, another few days shouldn’t make much difference.

Update: The ISPs were given two more weeks to block The Pirate Bay.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The latest attempt at blocking a website comes from Verein für Anti-Piraterie der österreichischen Film und Videobranche (VAP) – the anti-piracy association of the Austrian film and video industry.

In October, VAP approached several ISPs with a request to block Kino.to, a popular movie streaming portal which ranks in the top 50 sites of both Germany and Austria. Kino.to hosts no illicit content itself but indexes material stored on file-hosters and other streaming services.

More than 1500 IP addresses and nine domains are present on a VAP blocking wish list including MegaVideo.com, duckload.com, Freeload.to, Speedload.to and Archive.to.

Internet Service Providers Austria (ISPA) responded robustly to the request on behalf of their members, stating clearly that ISPs are mere carriers of information and that the request has no legal basis.

“It would be better for the rights holders to think about innovative business models,” said Secretary-General Andreas Wildberger.

Undeterred, at a press conference this week VAP announced that it now intends to force ISPs to cede to their wishes. They say they will do this by singling out one ISP in particular, UPC, to block Kino.to and other domains via a court injunction.

“Since the operators [of the 'infringing' services] cannot be found, we will hold the Internet service providers to account,” said a VAP spokesman.

In common with its division in Ireland (there it refused to cooperate with 3 strikes demands from the music industry), UPC is standing its ground.

“UPC enables its customers to access the Internet, but has no obligation and no right to selection or examination of the content provided therein,” the company said in a statement.

Werner Müller of VAP said the aim of the test case against UPC is to see whether the blocking of sites with “consistently illegal content” can be enforced via the courts.

The Pirate Party of Austria said it “is appalled but not surprised” at what it describes as a “Chinese-style” censorship attempt.

“It’s not about censorship, but rather the imposition of economic interests,” said VAP lawyer Andreas Manak.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.