Control Freaks

Web-blocking is now fully up and running as an anti-piracy tactic in Norway, following a court ruling that orders ISPs in the country to block their customers from accessing eight piracy websites.

Norway actually joined the web-block party with an initial ruling last year. The courts later made the initial injunction permanent confirming this is now a readily available option for copyright owners in Norway seeking to limit access to piracy sites.

In 2014, the High Court ordered Sky, TalkTalk, BT, Virgin Media and EE to block websites dealing in counterfeit luxury products.

The ISPs appealed the case on a number of grounds, including that the court had no power to order the injunctions. That appeal has now failed.

In their appeal, the ISPs complained that they are innocent parties and that the Court had no jurisdiction to hand down a blocking order. However, even in the event that it did have jurisdiction, the ISPs said that certain thresholds required for an injunction had not been met.

Continuing, the ISPs said that the judge had failed to apply the correct principles in deciding whether or not to hand down an order, and that the orders made were disproportionate. Finally, the judge should not have ordered the ISPs to foot the bill for blocking the infringing sites.

This week the Court of Appeal handed down its long awaited decision and it's almost completely good news for the brand owners.

Dismissing the ISPs' appeal, the Court said that High Court did indeed have the power to issue the blocking injunctions and that all the legal thresholds for doing so had been met.

Interestingly, on the issue of who would pay for the site-blocking to be carried out, the Court of Appeal had some sympathy for the ISPs. Justice Briggs wrote:

In my judgment the cost burden attributable to the implementation of a particular blocking order should fall upon the rightsholder making the application for it.

In circumstances where valuable intangible rights of this kind need to be protected from abuse by others, I regard it as a natural incident of a business which consists of, or includes, the exploitation of such rights, to incur cost in their protection, to the extent that it cannot be reimbursed by appropriate orders against wrongdoers.

But that doesn't mean that the ISPs are completely off the hook. Justice Briggs said that while the ISPs wouldn't have to pay the costs associated with implementing a blocking order, they would still have to foot the bill for designing and installing the software with which to do so whenever ordered.

The UK Government's Digital Economy Bill, which is set to revamp current copyright legislation, has been introduced in Parliament.

One of the most controversial changes is the increased maximum sentences for online copyright infringement. Despite public protest, the bill increased the maximum prison term five-fold, from two to ten years.

The current maximum of two years is not enough to deter infringers, lawmakers argued. The plan followed a recommendation put forward in a study commissioned by the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO) a few months earlier. This study concluded that criminal sanctions for online copyright infringement could be increased to bring them into line with related offenses, such as counterfeiting.

Before implementing the changes the Government launched a public consultation, asking for comments and advice from the public. But, even though the vast majority of the responses urged the authorities not to up the prison term , lawmakers decided otherwise.

Executive Director of Open Rights Group, Jim Killock said:

The Government is proposing that people who breach copyright online should receive up to ten years in prison to bring sentencing in line with physical copyright theft. Copyright needs to be protected but the proposals could mean that individuals who share or link to files could receive custodial sentences -- even if they have not made any financial gain. This would be excessive and could mean that sharing a file online would lead to a greater custodial sentence than physical theft.