The number of “pirate” websites being blocked in the UK is growing at a rapid pace.
This week a new High Court ruling went into effect ordering BT, Sky, Virgin Media, O2, EE and TalkTalk to block access to the popular torrent site YIFY-Torrents, as well as streaming portals PrimeWire, Vodly, WatchFreeMovies and Project Free TV.
The major UK Internet providers have stopped defending themselves against entertainment industry requests, making it a mere formality for copyright holders to have a torrent or similar site blocked by order of the High Court.
Talking to TorrentFreak Virgin Media confirmed the latest additions.
“We obey court orders when addressed to the company,” Virgin’s Gareth Mead said, noting that the streaming sites SolarMovie and Tubeplus will also be blocked next month.
The total number of websites blocked on copyright grounds is 33, not counting proxies and other alternative domains. This list includes all the 10 most visited torrent sites including The Pirate Bay, and is expected to expand further in the weeks and months to come.
Whether the measures will be successful in preventing people from downloading and watching “pirated” content entirely has yet to be seen. These are still hundreds of alternative sites still available, as well as many proxies that provide access to blocked sites via a detour.
The entertainment industries, however, are confident that their actions will not be in vain. The movie studios and record labels will continue to press site owners to take down their services, and will submit complaints to the High Court for those that fail to comply.
“All of the sites in recent actions have been asked to comply with UK and international law and have refused to do so,” a FACT spokesman told TorrentFreak in response to the recent blocking orders.
“We have made it clear that we will seek action against sites that continue to provide unremitting mass access to infringing content following due legal process,” the Hollywood group said.
And so the Whack-a-Mole continues.
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The full list of sites that are currently blocked in the UK is as follows:
Primewire, Vodly, Watchfreemovies, Project-Free TV, Yify-Torrents, 1337x, Bitsnoop, Extratorrent, Monova, Torrentcrazy, Torrentdownloads, Torrentreactor, Torrentz, Ambp3, Beemp3, Bomb-mp3, Eemp3world, Filecrop, Filestube, Mp3juices, Mp3lemon, Mp3raid, Mp3skull, Newalbumreleases, Rapidlibrary, EZTV, FirstRowSports, Download4all, Movie2K, KickAssTorrents, Fenopy, H33T and The Pirate Bay.
