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Aussie labels seek KickassTorrents web-block

By | Published on Thursday 21 April 2016

Kickass Torrents

With Australian TV firm Foxtel busy building a blockade around The Pirate Bay, the major record companies are taking on responsibility for constructing a fence around the KickassTorrents compound that would impress even Donald Trump.

The Australian entertainment industry is now capitalising on previously reported new web-blocking laws in the country, which allow content owners to request the courts to force internet service providers to block access to piracy websites.

After Foxtel made the first web-block application in Australia, with usual suspect The Pirate Bay at the top of its target list, this week the Australian Recording Industry Association teamed up with collecting society APRA/AMCOS to file its first web-block request in the country, with Kickass their main priority.

Confirming the web-block bid, APRA chair Jenny Morris told reporters: “Online infringement continues to be a major threat to the sustainability of the Australian music industry. Illegal offshore sites like Kickass Torrents show a complete disrespect for music creators and the value of music”.

She went on: “Australian music fans already have access – for free if they choose – to the world’s repertoire of music via more than 20 legitimate licensed online music services. Blocking access to sites like Kickass Torrents is all about supporting those services and allowing the writers whose songs are available on them to be paid for their work”.

As much previously reported, web-blocking has become a preferred anti-piracy tactic in most of the countries where web-block injunctions are an option, and no more so than in the UK. Though web-blocking is by no means perfect, because a simple Google search will usually tell users how to access blocked sites with just a couple of clicks. Which is why one of the UK record industry’s recent demands of Google was that it automatically de-list any blocked piracy site, and any proxies seeking to circumvent the blockades.



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