The Publishers Association (PA) has convinced the High Court to force most of the major broadband ISPs in the United Kingdom (BT, Sky Broadband, Virgin Media, TalkTalk, EE and Plusnet) to extend and expand their existing block of websites, focusing on those that were found to facilitate internet copyright infringement (piracy) of books and journals.
At present such blocking orders, which in the UK flow from Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (CDPA), aren’t cheap to bring but have over the past 15 years or so become very common. Hundreds of websites have been blocked through this approach (thousands if you include their many proxies and mirrors), which usually include file sharing (P2P / Torrent), streaming sites, Sci-Hub and those that sell counterfeit goods etc.
In this case the new order will continue the blocking of sites first blocked in 2015, but the main change this time is that it will also be extended to ‘copycat’ (mirror) domains (i.e. sites linked to the original targets and a number of newly added domains) and some new domains (e.g. Library Genesis, Z-Library and Anna’s Archive). Some previous blocking orders for different sites / industries have already introduced similar extensions.
The PA claims that the sites and networks, which are the subject of this order, infringe copyright on a “massive scale“. For example, the Publishers Association has identified through its Copyright Infringement Portal over 1 million copyright infringing book and journal URLs on Anna’s Archive domains. In addition, rights holders have requested delisting from Google search results of over 280 million URLs which link to “copyright-protected content made available without permission” on Anna’s Archive domains.
A Publishers Association spokesperson said:
“Expanding digital markets and technological advancement inevitably result in growth in levels of online infringement. Our members need to be able to protect authors’ works from such illegal activity. Authors need to be compensated for their work and publishers and booksellers need to be able to continue to innovate and invest in new talent and material.
We are pleased that the High Court has granted this extended order and, in doing so, recognised the damage inflicted on UK authors, publishers and booksellers by online piracy. This could not be more important than at a time when the internet is being scraped and books and journals used at scale unlawfully in the training of LLMs without compensation or acknowledgment.”
Blocking orders like this do not come cheap and some years ago Wiggin LLP revealed that an unopposed application tends to cost around £14,000 per site. On top of that the additional admin required to maintain the block and keep ISPs up-to-date with related IP changes and new URLs (Proxy Servers) comes to around £3,600 per site per year. But those figures will have changed a lot since then.
Meanwhile ISPs also incur on-going costs as part of their work to introduce the blocks. Some years ago EE suggested that a “near four figure sum” was involved with each update, while Sky Broadband hinted at a “mid three figure sum” and then roughly half that for future updates. Similarly Virgin Media pegged their own annual costs at a “low five figure sum“.
On the flip side such blocks don’t always stop the targeted websites and indeed they may even help to advertise their existence. Naturally, those who actively engage in internet piracy will easily be able to circumvent the restrictions by using all sorts of different approaches. Otherwise, the ISPs now have 10 working days from the notification to block customer from accessing the sites. The ISPs are not themselves accused of any wrongdoing.