back to article Brit ISPs ordered to add more movie-streaming websites to block list

The UK’s biggest ISPs must block customers from accessing another two unlicensed movie-streaming sites, SolarMovie and Tubeplus. High Court Judge Lord Justice Arnold has ruled that the ISPs should add the sites to the ever-growing list of websites which it must prevent customers from accessing. The Big Five ISPs – BT, Sky …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    why do they bother

    there are tons of proxys for every one of em.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: why do they bother

      It's like digging a hole on the sea with a shovel.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: why do they bother

      I was thinking that I know the proxies for at least half on that list and Google seems still happy supply the rest on demand...knowledge fo purely educational reasons of course!

    3. Dances With Sheep
      Mushroom

      Don't even need to find a proxy

      Opera users can just turn on 'opera turbo'.

      1. moonface

        Re: Don't even need to find a proxy

        The block list is like official government recommendation that a site is not just a malware pit of doom but actually has some worthwhile content. I would never of have heard about most of the sites without the list.

      2. paulc

        Re: Don't even need to find a proxy

        Just wait until that gets declared as a circumvention tool...

    4. Velv
      Pirate

      Re: why do they bother

      Why do they bother?

      Because the board of directors need to make the shareholders think that something is being done to protect their investment. Doesn't matter that its ineffective, it protects the boards extortionate salary and prevents them being sacked.

    5. Sheep!

      Re: why do they bother

      They bother because it's the cumulative effect of creeping censorship. Start off with everything people agree is bad - child porn sites etc, then move on to things that can be portrayed as morally bad (torrent sites), and as that list starts to grow and people start getting bored with keeping an eye on it we will slowly start to get sites that "corrupt the youth" being banned. The Uk is fast becoming a cyber-province of the Great Firewall.

    6. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: why do they bother

      It's very helpful for them to catalogue the useful resources, though.

  2. Haku

    "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."

  3. Flawless101

    I'm curious how big they are in the whole grand scheme of piracy. I've never heard of the majority of them. You'll be doing this a long time trying to take down the small websites, and the bigger ones will just get more and more proxies for access. Yes, another well thought out plan.

    1. Suricou Raven

      They are very big for the 'casual pirates,' especially those who just want music.

  4. wowfood

    Conratulations. In other news, last month 5 news sites which are remarkably similar to the blocked sites popped up last month, and it's rumoured two new sites very similar to SolarMove and TubePlus will be opening within weeks.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      And then THOSE sites get blocked next...and the ones after that...and the ones after that. The movie companies have infinite patience and the Internet only has so many v4 IPs. Eventually, they'll use the Whac-A-Mole exercise as an excuse to institute a mandatory national whitelist firewall for the sake of the people.

      1. MrDamage Silver badge

        v4 IPs

        Dont know how they do it in the UK, but in Oz they have only blocked these sorts of sites at the DNS level. If you know the IP address, you can still get there.

        1. Charles 9

          Re: v4 IPs

          The Brits aren't so dense. They block by IP; since most people don't know how to keep a hosts file or use an alternative DNS (they may not even be able to--depends on the ISP), that tends to be enough for them. That's why you typically have to reach the site by a proxy which hasn't been blocked yet. If the site changes IP, they'll just block that one, too.

          1. Justicesays

            Re: v4 IPs

            Finally a reason to move to ipv6...

            I guess they could keep blocking ipv6 addresses, but it would take a while to run out of free ones.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Thanks...

    ... for the advice, I will update my web favourites with the ones I hadn't heard of before. These court orders are proving to be very useful (read: Streisand effect).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Thanks...

      Yup, me too.

      Never heard of those two before. But I have now.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Thanks... By Dr Evil

        That's entirely the plan. Now, where did I put that receipt for the moat to the duck pond? Ah, a few grand? Might know a couple of internet downloaders who have fines coming their way. Good old boys at the station must have been watching the feeds...

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And another loosing hand is played in the on-going game of Whack-a-Mole.

    If people can cope with finding a movie or torrent site, they can cope with finding a proxy...

    1. Charles 9

      Thing is, they're attacking all the proxies, too.

    2. king of foo

      ...or a dictionary

  7. Victor Ludorum
    Thumb Down

    eztv and kat are also blocked (on Virgin at least).

    It's such a shame that there are ways round the block... (ztunnel, tor and vpn to name a few)

    V.

  8. James O'Shea

    Thanks for the list. Now, just add a list of proxies from _outside_ of the UK...

    Hmm. I smell a Business Opportunity.

  9. james 68

    "Under UK law, the rights-owner can apply to have a website blocked provided it can persuade a judge the evidence is strong enough. Lord Justice Arnold agreed the sites have the effect of making unauthorised stuff available."

    How long till Google gets stiffed then?

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why is it alway Arnold that presides over these cases? Why do the defendants not get a right to defence?

    Surely they realise this 'blocking' is naught more than an inconvenience for those that want access to these sites, it reminds me of kids hiding their eyes with their hands and believing no-one could see them.

    1. GitMeMyShootinIrons

      "Why is it alway Arnold that presides over these cases?"

      Its efficient, dear boy. It means the studios etc only have to lean on/ wine and dine one judge.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Oh dear

    Whatever will we do?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'm not sure who they think this is going to stop. A gibbon can work out how to sidestep the blocks...all they're doing really is publishing a shopping list.

  13. Select * From Handle

    mehh...

    These blocks are useless, someone will create a proxy website within a week...

  14. MikeyD85

    I'd like to know the ratio

    Of the number of pages have been blocked to the number of new pages (proxy sites) created since the blocks.

  15. firefly

    Thanks BPI!

    Apart from the obvious ones (TPB etc), I've never heard of these sites. Since it is piss-easy to evade these blocks I think I'll pay them a visit and download something.

    Will they ever learn about the Streisand Effect?

  16. Miek
    Meh

    I was going to buy some DVD box sets today on Amazon ... don't think I'll bother now.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Arnold...

  18. James 51

    Sounds like their trying to bail out a sinking ship with a sieve. They'd be better off building a better boat.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    One has to wonder if these blocks will be as ineffectual as the blocks put up for The Pirate Bay and its multitude of proxies. We should call these 'Hydra sites'. Cut off one head and another soon appears.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Post a comment working here yet?

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A start

    While blocking piracy sites is a start, Blighty's beaks need to get in touch with reality and impose the same punishment for piracy and facilitation of piracy that Japan has with a mandatory 2 years jail time for piracy and a mandatory 10 years for facilitation of piracy, plus stiff fines. The pirates aren't very bright so they need a place to reside for a few years where they can get a personal, hand's on educational experience regarding crime and why you are punished for committing crimes.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: A start

      LOL. You're hilarious. MPAA and their like "need to get in touch with reality" as you put it ...

    2. MrXavia

      Re: A start

      WTF?

      Piracy is NOT a Crime, Piracy is NOT theft. it is Copyright Violation, a Civil offence, not Criminal...

      Prison time for downloading something is mad... just fine them the retail cost... and if they cause losses, which are proven, then fine them that amount!

      1. Steven Jones

        Re: A start

        MrXavia

        You are clearly not very up to date with the law. Whilst copyright infringement is, for the most part, a civil issue, it can be criminal if it is deliberate and systematic, especially for commercial gain.

        This is a link to the CPS guidelines

        http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/h_to_k/intellectual_property_crime/#a04

        So, to summarise, if you an individual infringes copyright by making casual copies, then it's not going to end up in a criminal case, but if you knowingly make a business of it, then it could be a different story.

        Again, yet another poster not bothering to research freely available information.

    3. heyrick Silver badge

      Re: A start

      "and a mandatory 10 years for facilitation of piracy" - I'm pissing myself laughing. You do know that people have had less for rape and murder, right? Okay, granted, there are often a variety of mitigating factors (which is why the sentence isn't something like "30 to life"); however these sorts of criminal acts are so far out of the ballpark of piddly little civil law things such as copyright infringement that it is akin to remodelling your house using a god-damned bazooka.

      As for piracy - what counts as piracy, exactly? Buying a CD and then ripping it so you can put a copy on your phone? Do you feel it is justified that you should pay for the exact same thing twice because They Who Want To Make The Rules would like format changing to be illegal? Gee, now, you don't suppose they could have any ulterior motives in mind, huh, like, say, selling two copies of the same thing? [remember, that's mere pennies to the performer and rather more to them so it is in their direct interest to disallow such activities that would lose them profit]

      Now, you might be saying "wait, what? aren't we talking about torrenting the latest cinema favourite?". Actually, we are. If the system is not seen to be fair, people are less likely to be supportive of it. Let's see: declared monetary losses that's a huge chunk of the GDP of the entire country, declared job losses larger than the number of registered workers in said industry, claiming insane amounts of losses for a DOWNloader (get real, said loss equals one retail copy), perhaps because such people (including children) are an easier target than the uploaders. Add to this the desire to take away your ability to put a work you have legally purchased onto a device of your choosing for your personal enjoyment, the non-stop bombardment of patronising bullshit before you get to watch a DVD you bought (you wouldn't steal a car...), the move to "licensing" things so you don't really own what you have purchased, and throw in the moronic UK legis. regarding orphaned works...and you start to see that it's all a bit one sided. One sided as in 10 PRINT "we get screwed" : 20 GOTO 10

      So here is a deal. I'll give you your mandatory 10 years IF you give me a mandatory 10 years for the CEO (and if no current CEO, then just work down the hierarchy) of any media outlet that rips off work created by a regular civilian, with double if they assign copyright to some arbitrary entity such as "the internet" or suchlike. Hey, Daily Mail, I'm looking at you here. Plus a 10 year prison term for attempts to subvert the natural copyright expiry by evergreening or similar. Additionally, a 10 year mandatory term for the CEO/director of any entity that fires off invalid and unjustified DMCAs at work that can be demonstrated to not be work that they represent the copyright of, regardless of whether or not said DMCA was generated by a person or by automatic means. Don't you think that sounds fair?

      1. Alan Edwards

        Re: A start

        > You do know that people have had less for rape and murder, right?

        Well yes, but they aren't really important are they? That only affects the little people, no-one that actually matters.

        Piracy is the more important crime to the government, as that affects where the money for coke and yachts (and the next election) comes from.

  22. Kaltern
    Pirate

    In other news..

    ... Google pay out £550 Million in 'donations' to the Conservative Party, in order to ensure that they don't accidentally end up on that list.

    *wakes up*

    Oh sorry, I was having a 'moment'... apologies.

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What is the ISPs' position?

    Such that a court order is required?

    1. Steven Jones

      Re: What is the ISPs' position?

      The ISPs basically need a court order. If there wasn't one, then they'd be liable to legal action from the blocked site. Of course, they might still be able to win such a case (after all, ISPs routinely block sites carrying "illegal" content using subscription lists without court orfer), but I can guarantee no ISP wants to be responsible for policing the Internet for material infringing copyright. It would be a thankless, fruitless and incredibly expensive job.

      So they'll leave it to the rights holders to get the court orders with, probably, only an objection if there are obvious objections. Otherwise, it's just a waste of money for the ISPs.

  24. Alan Brown Silver badge

    At what point

    Does the judge admit he's trying to push water uphill with a rake?

    1. Dodgy Geezer Silver badge

      Re: At what point

      The judge doesn't have a problem. The case is work - he gets paid. No problem. Even more the case for the Media solicitors.

      If you want to SOLVE a problem - don't go to law...

      1. Allonymous Coward
        Pint

        Re: At what point

        If you want to SOLVE a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them...

  25. Richard 1

    El reg should be blocked, too!

    I conclude that The Register should also be blocked by the UK ISPs for giving away the names of all the good pirate sites that whilst now (or soon to be) blocked. With this fresh list of sites good enough the garner the attention of the copyright holders I can now find the alternate DNS names for them or proxies. Free stuff for everyone! Is this a strange case of the Streisand Effect?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: El reg should be blocked, too!

      You mean The Register is contributing to reducing the economy's GDP? Your comment instils fear in me... Terrorist!

  26. shyted
    FAIL

    They'll never learn

    You forget the proxies that are also blocked, its become a game of wack a mole.

    It would be interesting to know how much Uk torrent traffic is down, it should be a massive drop if this has been effective. I'd hazard a guess that its only detered the less technically minded, who only discovered torrents due to all the publicity of trying to shut sites like the TPB down.

    Its interesting that I've heard people who I wouldn't expect to, talk about trading whole hard drives with each other.

    Can anybody honestly say, aside from greed, why the media companies haven't built a reasonably priced, legal, pirate bay in all these years?

    1. Annihilator
      Boffin

      Re: They'll never learn

      "I'd hazard a guess that its only detered the less technically minded"

      Uploads will have dropped drastically. The less technically minded (exhibit A - my brother) found out about torrents, but didn't realise they kept seeding, or even what seeding was. By the time I visited him and investigated why his "internet was slow", the list of seeding content was huge (and a disturbing insight)

  27. HMB

    The Big Five

    I've always found it being the big five who are asked to do these blocks quite fascinating. It's a really interesting decision. I certainly don't want to knock it in any way, but it somewhat amuses me that the most determined freetard™ will simply seek other ISPs such as plusnet.

    "Judge encourages ISP market diversity by blocking certain sites from the most popular ISPs" - Just an amusing notion.

    1. Jay 2

      Re: The Big Five

      I did wonder about this, as PlusNet is owned by BT (but is a separate business). I guess PN et al would need a separate cort order to block things.

      Meanwhile a quick bit of jiggery-pokery later and nastytorrentsite.com on 1.1.1.1 becomes nastytorrentsite.fu on 2.2.2.2, Google t'interweb spiders do their thing and it's back to normal.

  28. Graham Marsden

    "the rights-owner can apply to have a website blocked...

    "...provided it can persuade a judge the evidence is strong enough. Lord Justice Arnold agreed the sites have the effect of making unauthorised stuff available."

    Pity there isn't an additional clause saying that, in order to have a site blocked, the stuff that it's made available should, instead, be made available by the rights-owner at a fair and reasonable price...

    1. DiViDeD

      Re: "the rights-owner can apply to have a website blocked...

      "Pity there isn't an additional clause saying that, in order to have a site blocked, the stuff that it's made available should, instead, be made available by the rights-owner at a fair and reasonable price..."

      Too true. When I was looking to get a replacement for my vinyl copy of Spooky Tooth's Ceremony, all I got was torrent sites, mega and a few 20 second clips in the progarchive.

      Anything that was less than popular on release is almost (and in many cases completely) impossible to get through legitimate channels, and then only at an outrageous markup (How much of that 11 quid for At Last does any member of Frogmorton actually get to see?)

      Meanwhile, in order to protect a few blockbusters (mickey mouse, snow white - is there a pattern here?), thousands of lesser works languish in copyright hell, unavailable to buy because they're unknown (ie: not big profit earners) and not available in the public domain because that would hurt the Disney Corp (don't take my word for it, ask the guys at the Gutenberg Project).

      Surely with storage so cheap these days, it's not too much to ask that every piece of media be available legitimately, at a reasonable cost? Good or bad, popular or obscure, it's our cultural heritage. Historians speak of the Great Library of Alexandria, and the terrible loss of so many ancient writings, but at least the stewards of Alexandria didn't deliberately set the fire to protect their outmoded business model.

  29. Greg D
    FAIL

    hmmm...

    I might have to make Tor my default browser soon :O

  30. Jerky Jerk face

    booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    At some point, in the not too distant future

    someone will realise that blocking freetards access simply makes the freetard more determined to find pirateble material.

    If for no other reason than as a sign of defiance. Cat v mouse, whack-a-mole, call it what you want.

    Ultimately the freetards (which includes myself) will circumvent the blocks, carry on downloading films, music, games, software etc not because of monetary gain but because they dont like being told what they can download. I download stuff for my convienience and my personal pleasure. Not to flog or consequently upload to the world and its dog. After all, someone else has already done that...

    And every thing i download for free is one hit in the bollocks for numpties that endorse this blocking. Make no mistake, this is function creep at its worst.

    NB, can i just make clear that i DO purchase software but i will always download a dodgy copy first to ensure it works as i want it to, not how the seller says it works. As for music, they can bollocks. I'd rather stick a 10'er in the hand of the artisit. Not the flange badger who manages them...

    1. SJG

      Re: At some point, in the not too distant future

      I have both LoveFilm and Netflix and so have access to probably the two largest streaming libraries in the UK. However, if I were in the US, I get a whole load more on those same services - especially with more recent episodes of long running TV series.

      For me, the problem isn't so much that I want to avoid paying (I do pay - see above) it's that I just don't understand why in this world of globalisation I can't buy a digital product that is available elsewhere in the world. I would even be willing to pay extra for more recent versions of these series - but someone somewhere has decided that my money is not good enough, and I have to wait at least a year before I am allowed to buy the product.

      Can someone explain to me how it's better for the media companies to not sell me something I want to buy?

      ... and on another point, I travel in Europe a lot, but if I'm in a hotel in another EU country both Netflix and Lovefilm are blocked .... but I've paid and it's a single free market .... how does that work then ?

      1. Mike Brown

        Re: At some point, in the not too distant future

        + a million. I want to pay but they won't take my money

      2. heyrick Silver badge

        Re: At some point, in the not too distant future

        me++;

        I'd subscribe to Crunchyroll but for all the interesting stuff, it's a mostly blank page with the message on the right saying "Sorry, due to licensing limitations, videos are unavailable in your region.".

        As you said, how does this benefit the animation studios to not provide me with content I would be willing to purchase? No streaming option, so... Is there a DVD? Nope. I can get it off eBay but with both seasons (50 episodes) on four DVDs, MPEG2 remember, there's no way something that low quality can be legit.

        Doesn't leave a lot of options, does it? I guess if my money just isn't good enough......

        1. Sir Runcible Spoon

          Re: At some point, in the not too distant future

          " ..someone will realise that blocking freetards access simply makes the freetard more determined to find pirateble material."

          I think the end result will be people just not bothering full stop.

          I know I don't buy anywhere near as much these days, and I download almost nothing. Once upon a time I bought around 5 DVD's a month on average, and because I was interested in stuff I would download some stuff that was hard to find.

          The correlation (for me at least) is fairly direct. Piss me off, I download less, but I also buy less. Disenfranchised I think they call it. Saving a shed load of money is what I call it.

      3. Piro Silver badge

        Re: At some point, in the not too distant future

        Use "Media Hint" - an addon for Chrome or Firefox. Problem solved.

  32. This post has been deleted by its author

  33. psychonaut

    just use private tunnel

    Sign up for private tunnel. Costs very little..about 15 quid a year iirc. Gives you 50gb of data per year and you can ip spoof both wYs. So if you are in uk and want to visit tpb you can pop up in canada and do it from there. If you are in germany and want to watch iplayer you can pop up in london

  34. Suburban Inmate

    I have ToR

    But there's no need for that when google loads so much quicker.

    My most recent pirating: Blackfish, but I dropped a tenner in bornfree.org.uk 's guitar case instead :)

  35. Chozo

    So how's this blocking going to work then?

    The problem with the 'Whac a mole' approach is that when the moles go underground your'e buggered. Riddick, Last days on Mars, Pacific Rim & Enders Game can all be found in their entirety on YouTube for free... if that is you know where or rather how to look.

  36. Zmodem

    unless your a complete nerd or looser with no life, paying £2 here and there to watch a licensed movie, is cheaper then paying £40 a month for a VPN or proxy app

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