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Publishers Association wins High Court bid ordering internet service providers to block pirate websites
The High Court has granted an application brought by the Publishers Association (PA) requiring the UK’s main Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block access to a collection of websites that allow access to pirated books and journals.
The order, granted under section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, applies to websites that host and provide access to substantial amounts of infringing content.
Website blocking as a remedy for tackling piracy was first deployed by publishers collectively in 2015. The court can be asked to order intermediaries to intervene to prevent access to websites which infringe copyright.
This order is the first of its kind for UK publishing, because it also targets “copycat” domains that trade off existing pirate brands.
It means that within 10 working days of notification, BT, Virgin Media, Sky, TalkTalk, EE and Plusnet will be required to block customer access to the sites.
The order will continue the blocking of sites first blocked in 2015 (AvaxHome, Ebookee, FreeBookSpot, FreshWap, LibGen, Bookfi and BookRe), as well as extending to "copycat" domains, sites linked to the original targets and a number of newly added domains and networks including Library Genesis, Z-Library and Anna’s Archive.
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These sites and networks infringe copyright on a massive scale according to the PA, which says it has identified more than one million copyright-infringing book and journal URLs on Anna’s Archive domains.
A PA 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.”
It added: “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.”
Site blocking is just one part of a suite of content protection and enforcement work undertaken by the Publishers Association on behalf of its members.
