The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has written to the UK’s six major Internet service providers (ISPs) asking them to block three more file-sharing websites, as it says that they are illegally distributing music.
The BPI has asked for Fenopy, H33t and Kickass Torrents to be blocked but the ISPs have said that they will only comply if a court order is put into place, which follows a separate court order in April that blocked file-sharing site The Pirate Bay in the UK.
BT, which is the biggest ISP in the UK has said that it is “currently considering” its options. The others, namely Sky, Virgin Media, O2, EE and Talk Talk have all agreed that they will not block the sites voluntarily but would comply with a court order.
The BPI is hopeful that all three sites will be blocked by Christmas, which would be a much quicker process than the blocking of The Pirate Bay, one of the most visited file-sharing sites on the web.
While it is feasible that a court order could be obtained in such a short time, critics argue that consumers’ interests are not being properly represented by blocking the sites and others say that it is ineffective anyway, as other services can be set up very quickly to allow users to access the same sites through alternative means, which is what happened with The Pirate Bay.
However, the BPI said that the blocking of The Pirate Bay at least had a significant effect on the amount of traffic visiting the site, which is endorsed by web monitoring firm Nielsen, which said that traffic to The Pirate Bay dropped by three quarters after the blocking in April.