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Movie industry web-blocking order targets cyber-locker
By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 16 February 2022
Another web-blocking order has been issued by the UK courts, this time as a result of action by the movie industry. The latest web-block injunction targets another cyber-locker service as the entertainment industry continues to expand the kinds of platforms it targets with its anti-piracy activity.
Web-blocking, of course, is where copyright owners get injunctions from a court ordering internet service providers to block access to specific piracy websites. In those countries where such injunctions are available web-blocking has become a favoured anti-piracy tactic of the music and movie industries, and no more so than in the UK.
The latest sites targeted by a web-block injunction are Mixdrop.me and Mixdrop.co, which – despite having the same name – seem to be different services.
The former is an unlicensed movie streaming service, the latter a cyber locker that allows people to store and share digital files. Of course the latter could be used for legitimate file storage and sharing, though presumably the movie and TV companies that requested this web-block reckon it is mainly used for storing and sharing copyright infringing videos.
Although the music and movie industries started complaining about cyber lockers being used to distribute unlicensed content relatively early on in their big old battle against online piracy, to date web-blocks have tended to target file-sharing sites like The Pirate Bay or unlicensed streaming services like Mixdrop.me.
That said, the music industry included a cyber-locker in one of its web-blocking actions last year, in that case Nitroflare which, record label trade body BPI argued, was “deliberately designed to encourage and reward users to upload music and other valuable copyright material, and illegally share links to it with others who can then illegally download it”.
Interestingly, the latest web-block order was requested by various movie studios as well as Netflix and Sky. Meanwhile the ISPs targeted by the web-blocking order are BT, EE, Plusnet, TalkTalk, Virgin Media and, oh look, Sky.
Though these days ISPs in most countries – especially the UK – generally accept web-blocking orders as a routine rights management chore, so even though Sky is on both sides of this legal action, the two sides of the business won’t actually have had to shout at each other.
