[Archive 2016-12-17] Australian Federal Court orders ISPs to block copyright infringing sites

Historical archive — originally published 2016-12-17. This report records what was known on that date. It is not current news; subsequent events may have changed the situation. Wikinews closed in May 2026.

On Thursday, the Australian Federal Court ordered Internet service providers to block websites which infringe copyright. The court required five websites be blocked — Pirate Bay, Torrentz, isoHunt, Torrenthound, and SolarMovie.

In the first case of site blocking under new Australian legislation, the court asked the companies to block access to these websites within fifteen business days. The ISPs are free to choose the method of blocking; options include DNS blocking, blocking IP addresses and URL blocking.

The court has asked the copyright holders to pay up to A$50 to the ISPs for each domain to be blocked. After successful blocking of these websites they are to be replaced by a landing page showing an "access denied" message as well as a notice the website "infringes or facilitates the infringement of copyright."

Graham Bruke, co-executive of the other copyright holder in the case, Village Roadshow, in October called people who pirate the copyrighted material "leeches and thieves" and compared them to heroin sellers. Foxtel and Village Roadshow plan to block over 50 websites.

Various Linux distributions like Debian, Ubuntu and OpenSUSE allow users to download the freely licensed operating system through torrents.

Source and licence

Text adapted from Australian Federal Court orders ISPs to block copyright infringing sites by Wikinews contributors under CC BY 2.5. Paragraphs have been selected and abridged, and formatting adjusted. Contributor history.