This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Britischer High Court entscheidet, ISPs müssen The Pirate Bay sperren

The UK High Court has recently decided that The Pirate Bay (TPB) must be blocked by 5 UK internet service providers. No technical details were given in the ruling as, according to Mr Justice Arnold, the terms of the court order (the technical implementation measures) had been agreed to by the ISPs in question.

In November 2011, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) asked the group of the big ISPs to voluntarily block access to the site, after a court order to block Newzbin2 had been issued. At that time, the ISPs said they would not comply without a court order.

In February this year, the High Court ruled that operators of TPB website and its users were both guilty of infringing the copyright of music rights holders. And now, the court order has come, therefore Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media are compelled now to prevent the access of users to TPB. BT is still considering its position.

"As a responsible ISP, Virgin Media complies with court orders addressed to the company but strongly believes that changing consumer behaviour to tackle copyright infringement also needs compelling legal alternatives, such as our agreement with Spotify, to give consumers access to great content at the right price," was Virgin Media’s statement to BBC.

Jim Killock, executive director of the EDRi-member Open Rights Group (ORG), considers the action "pointless and dangerous". "It will fuel calls for further, wider and even more drastic calls for internet censorship of many kinds, from pornography to extremism. Internet censorship is growing in scope and becoming easier. Yet it never has the effect desired. It simply turns criminals into heroes," said Killock.

ORG has also shown concern over the blocking of TPB’s public blog which should not have been included in the court order and which is an act of pure censorship, as there is no question of copyright infringement there. “...the blocking of websites should not be viewed as a silver bullet," the ISPA said in a statement adding: "We hope that this litigation will be followed by the continued development of innovative fully-licensed online services by rights holders, which is the most effective way to tackle online copyright infringement."

In the meantime, TPB has stated that any blocking technique may be overcome by a range of measure, the simplest solution being that of using a VPN. TPB is also advising people to change their DNS provider switching to a DNS offered by the likes of OpenDNS and Google. TPB also told Torrentfreak that the actual result of blocking was unexpected, with the decisions of the High Court and the news on the BBC bringing 12 million more users in the next day on TPB.

The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs, court rules (30.04.2012)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17894176

We don't have to choose between freedom and copyright (3.05.2012)
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2012/we-dont-have-to-choose-betwee...

High Court orders ISPs to block The Pirate Bay (1.05.2012)
http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2012/may/high-court-orders-isps-to-...

Pirate Bay Enjoys 12 Million Traffic Boost, Shares Unblocking Tips (2.05.2012)
https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-enjoys-12-million-traffic-boost-sh...

EDRi-gram: Finnish ISP ordered to block The Pirate Bay (2.11.2011)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number9.21/finnish-isp-block-piratebay