In a battle over copyright law, the UK High Court has ruled that popular file-sharing website The Pirate Bay must be blocked by British Internet service providers.
“Sites like The Pirate Bay destroy jobs in the UK and undermine investment in new British artists," the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) said in a statement on the case.
From now on, British Internet providers like Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media will be required to prevent their users from accessing the file-sharing website.
The Monday ruling was welcomed by film and music insiders, who complain of lost profits due to the free downloading of content. It follows a February decision that the site and its users infringed on British copyright law.
"The High Court has confirmed that The PirateBay infringes copyright on a massive scale. Its operators line their pockets by commercially exploiting music and other creative works without paying a penny to the people who created them,” BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor said.
"This is wrong – musicians, sound engineers and video editors deserve to be paid for their work just like everyone else."
But the move by the High Court was decried by digital and civil rights groups.
“Blocking The PirateBay is 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,” Jim Killock, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group said in a statement.
"Internet censorship is growing in scope and becoming easier. Yet it never has the effect desired. It simply turns criminals into heroes."
Set up in 2003 in Sweden, The Pirate Bay hosts download links to free music and video. It claims to be the largest of its kind, with more than 5.5 million registered users and over 4 million torrent files.
The PirateBay’s defenders claim that the site does not infringe copyright, as it does not host any content and functions in a similar way as Google. Nevertheless, the court found that its operators “actively encourage” copyright infringement,
