An Internet Victory for Copyright Holders

There have been a number of intellectual property developments over recent months, among the most noteworthy of which was the order imposed on an internet service provider (ISP) to block access to a website. The High Court recently ordered ISP British Telecom to block access to a website that indexed and enabled searching of unlawful copies of films.

The Newzbin2 site was the second site that had been set up by an unidentified group of individuals following the voluntary liquidation of the original Newzbin Limited Company and the closure of the original Newzbin site in May 2010. The servers used to host the new site were located in Sweden, and the domain name was registered to a company in the Seychelles in an attempt to protect themselves against action in the UK.

In order to grant an injunction against an ISP under the Copyright Designs and Patent Act 1988 the ISP must have actual knowledge that another person is using their service to infringe copyright. Despite BT’s arguments that they did not have actual knowledge, the judge decided that an injunction may be granted against an ISP which “carried” an infringement since ISP’s were best placed to bring infringing activities to an end. The court’s decision indicates that the “actual knowledge” requirement should not be interpreted too restrictively and what had to be shown was that the ISP had actual knowledge of one or more parties using its services to infringe copyright.

It is an interesting decision and is believed to be the first order of its kind against an ISP. It is also a decision which those in the creative industries have welcomed. The difficulty many foresee, however, is the ease with which offending sites can be set up and the time it then takes to obtain an order of this nature to block access to the site in question.

The decision was made under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. Despite provisions in the Digital Economy Act 2010 addressing site blocking the Government recently announced that the implementation of those provisions of the act would be put on hold, which is a decision that has caused concern in the film and music industries.