Judge orders internet providers to block illegal downloading websites

ISPs must ‘take reasonable steps to disable access’ to Pirate Bay, Torrentz, TorrentHound, IsoHunt and streaming service SolarMovie....

The federal court has ordered internet providers to block major illegal download or torrenting websites, such as Pirate Bay and Torrentz, in a bid to crack down on online copyright infringement.

Justice John Nicholas handed down his judgment on Thursday afternoon in Sydney, ordering internet service providers to “take reasonable steps to disable access” to Pirate Bay, Torrentz, TorrentHound, IsoHunt and the streaming service SolarMovie within 15 working days.

Foxtel and Village Roadshow filed their application in February. Village Roadshow sought to have SolarMovie blocked, while Foxtel targeted the four other sites.

Telstra, Optus, TPG and M2 were the major respondents.

It is the first time laws introduced with the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Act have been successfully applied since it passed in June last year.

The federal court has allowed ISPs to determine how best to enact the order, with blocking domain names, IP addresses or target URLs among the possible strategies. Any other alternative means must be agreed upon in writing with the applicants.

TPG has proposed using domain name system (DNS) blocking to target the sites to prevent them from getting around the ban by changing their IP addresses.

Though Village Roadshow and Foxtel had proposed that the ISPs pay their own costs of compliance, the respondents uniformly opposed it.

Nicholas said that there had been “a large measure of co-operation between the applicants and the respondents”.

He proposed a “uniform amount for compliance costs” determined by the number of domain names that the ISPs would be required to block.

Peter Tonagh, the chief executive of Foxtel, welcomed the federal court’s ruling in a statement provided to the ABC.

“This judgment is a major step in both directly combating piracy and educating the public that accessing content through these sites is not OK, in fact it is theft. “This judgment gives us another tool to fight the international criminals who seek to profit from the hard work of actors, writers, directors and other creators the world over.”

Foxtel or Village Roadshow will have to apply to have any new websites added to the judgement.

Universal Music’s action to have Kickass Torrents blocked remains active.

A landmark case against Australian internet users accused of pirating the film Dallas Buyers Club was dropped by the plaintiff, DBC LLC, in February.

A federal court judge had said it was “wholly unrealistic” for the ISP iiNet to hand over the personal details of almost 5,000 customers who were accused of having downloaded the film.