For well over a decade, copyright holders have been obtaining injunctions around the world to have copyright-infringing sites blocked by Internet service providers.
The belief is that when users are presented with this roadblock, they will be more likely to turn to licensed services instead.
At the time of writing, more than 40 countries either have blocking measures in place or are required to implement them. These include members of the European Union plus Argentina, Australia, Iceland, India, Israel, Liechtenstein, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, and Thailand.
The UK is also prime blocking ground for copyright holders and it’s believed that at least hundreds and probably thousands of domains are blocked by ISPs. There is no publicly available centralized list but when new orders are issued, these are often reported by service providers. That was the case again this week when ISP TalkTalk published details of two new blocking orders.
Order Obtained by Elsevier and Springer Nature
In several regions, publishers Elsevier, Springer Nature and Wiley have been pursuing relentless legal action (1,2,3,4) against academic paper repository Sci-Hub and its founder Alexandra Elbakyan. Thus far efforts to shut the platform down have completely failed so in parallel, the publishers have been taking action against ISPs to have them block the platform’s domains.
Back in February, Elsevier and Springer Nature obtained an injunction that required the UK’s leading ISPs to block the domain sci-hub.se. In August, it was reported that the same providers were required to block scihub.unblockit.uno, a domain that helps people to access Sci-Hub when they find its domain blocked. These so-called proxy portals are a pretty big problem for the publishers since they undermine blocking efforts. It now appears they have been working to block even more of them.
A list published by TalkTalk this week but dated September 14 reveals that seven domains designed to neutralize blocking will now be blocked by this ISP and most likely others including BT, Virgin Media, Sky, and EE. They read as follows:
scihub.u4m.casa, scihub.unblockit.ch, scihub.nocensor.work, scihub.unbl0ck.cyou, scihub.unbl4you.club, scihub.123unblock.me, scihub.proxybit.me
These are just a tiny sample of proxy sites available online today so it’s probable that the publishers selected them due to their popularity. Any blocking is likely to push users to any number of alternatives but in combination with similar blocking efforts carried out by the Publishers Association against platforms including Libgen, the relatively minor hindrance may put some potential pirates off their stride.
Order Obtained by the MPA
Back in July, we reported that the MPA, which represents Netflix and the major Hollywood studios, had obtained a new blocking injunction in the UK targeting several pirate streaming sites including Myflixer.to, Soap2day.to, Lookmovie.io and Moviesjoy.to. The list added 19 domain names to the MPA’s overall blocking efforts and this week yet more domain blocks were revealed.
In common with the domains targeted by the publishers, the MPA’s list (as reported by TalkTalk) appears to target proxy-type services which have the stated aim of unblocking streaming and torrent site domains that have previously been listed for blocking action.
They include the resurrected Demonoid, EZTV (first blocked in 2013) plus additional sites operating under familiar brands such as Primewire (2013), Solarmovie (2013), and Putlocker (2016). The full list reads as follows:
eztv.unbl4you.club, solarmovie.unblockit.ch, eztv.unblocknow.club, icefilms.unblockit.ch, eztv.proxybit.me, scnsrc.unblockit.ch, eztv.mrunblock.casa, rapidmoviez.com, eztv.g3g.monster, losmovies.app, pw.unblockit.ch, demonoid.proxybit.me, primewire.proxybit.me, demonoid.mrunblock.casa, primewire.g3g.monster, demonoid.g3g.monster, primewire.nocensor.work, putlockers.gg, primewire.mrunblock.casa, 123movies.tools, primewire.unbl4you.club, 123moviesprime.com
Rapidmoviez.com is one of two ‘direct’ domains to be blocked in the order but it appears that the platform has already migrated to a new domain, Rmz.cr.
