New rulings in three related piracy cases in the New York courts include a pretty wide-ranging web-blocking order, possibly setting a precedent that web-blocks are now an anti-piracy tactic available to copyright owners in the US.
Web-blocking – where internet service providers are ordered to block their users from accessing piracy sites – has become a preferred anti-piracy tactic of the music and movie industries in those countries were such blocking orders are available through the courts.
In some countries, specific new copyright laws set in place a system via which copyright owners could secure web-blocks. Meanwhile, in other countries, like the UK, the courts simply decided that blocking orders were possible under existing copyright rules.
However, in the US, web-blocking has generally not been an option for copyright owners. That’s because proposals ten years ago to introduce a specific web-blocking system into US copyright law – known as SOPA and PIPA – proved very controversial indeed and were ultimately abandoned.
