Australia’s Federal Court has ordered a number of known piracy websites to be blocked by Australian ISPs, thanks to a bid by Foxtel, and local and international film studios.
As ZDNet reports, Foxtel, in addition to Village Roadshow – with the support of Warner Bros, Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, Disney, and Universal – have been fighting against online piracy for some time now. Yesterday, the Federal Court delivered a judgement that is set to impact piracy in Australia greatly.
Internet Service Providers TPG, Optus, and Vocus have just 15 days to disallow access to a number of sites that are associated with the facilitating of copyright engagement. As ZDNet notes, some of the sites that are required to be blocked include Yes Movies, Vumoo, Los Movies, Cartoon HD, Putlocker, Watch Series 1, Watch Series 2, Project – Free TV, ProjectFreeTV, Watch Episodes, Watch Episode Series, Watch TV Series, The Dare TV, Putlocker9.is, Putlocker9.com, 1337x, and Torlock.
Justice Nicholas stated that the sites that engaged in this “flagrant” behaviour of copyright infringement shows “a blatant disregard for the rights of copyright owners”.
In a statement to The Sydney Morning Herald, Village Roadshow’s executive director, Lori Flekser, stated that the blocked sites currently “account for around 95 per cent of traffic to infringing sites.”
“It’s a significant number of people who will be affected and a significant number of sites that will be shut down from providing pirated content,” Ms. Flekser said.
This is move is undoubtedly welcomed by local and international content creators, especially given the recent events that have seen a number of high-profile shows such as Game Of Thrones, and Curb Your Enthusiasm leak online by international hackers. The blocking of these domains will almost certainly restrict the ability for local viewers to access the copyrighted material.
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