The fight with piracy seems to have no end. The associations that protect copyright persecute it relentlessly and, little by little, they are achieving victories that are making it increasingly difficult to access pirted content. The last blow that this has suffered has been in the United Kingdom, where its High Court has authorized extending the blocking of websites that was previously only present in broadband . We tell you more about it.
Music has historically been one of the most pirted things, not only in the UK, but also in our country. On the Internet there are many portals that give access to download music protected by copyright totally free, and it seems that the only effective way to prevent this from happening is to block access to this type of portal.
Website blocking extends to mobile networks
As we say, the High Court of the United Kingdom has begun to authorize the extension of the blocking of illegal broadband music websites to mobile network users. This blocking has been started by EE, which is a subsidiary of the BT Group. The group in charge of announcing this new victory has been the BPI (or British Phonographic Industry), a group that has been fighting piracy for the last decade with all its might.
This group, in fact, has already achieved multiple victories against piracy, obtaining judgments and High Court orders against the four main broadband providers in the UK : the BT group, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media. Thanks to these sentences, more than 70 illegal websites and applications have been blocked, in addition to thousands of sites related to these that also infringe copyright.
EE has already begun to block these sites, something that represents a very important victory against piracy, since since 2011 the blocking of illegal websites began, it is the first time that it has been done for mobile phone users. The BPI considers it a victory, especially if we take into account that in the United Kingdom there are 85 million mobile lines. In the words of BPI General Counsel Kiaron Whitehead :
There are now more mobile lines than there are people in the UK, and we want those fans to enjoy genuine music sites and be protected from illegal sites as much as they already are on their broadband and WiFi. We are therefore pleased that EE, which was the first mobile network to roll out 5G to the UK population, has become the first mobile network to block pirte sites that are subject to our High Court blocking orders under of section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The BPI estimates that piracy is costing the record industry an estimated €237 million a year , a figure that could easily rise as mobile usage grows, so this victory is even more significant. Now that EE is blocking access to these types of portals, the BPI hopes that more consumers will be protected, and more artists, performers and music publishers will benefit from stronger protection of their rights.
