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Irish ISPs block Kickass
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 20 January 2014
Popular torrent site Kickass Torrents is the latest file-sharing service to be the subject of a web-block injunction in Ireland.
As previously reported, the Kickass site was added to the big bad web-block list in the UK last February after the British major record companies got a court injunction forcing most internet service providers to block access to any domains used by the service. Meanwhile the Irish record industry joined the web-block party last June when it secured an injunction forcing net firms to block access to The Pirate Bay.
Under the latest such court order secured by the majors in Ireland, several ISPs in the country are now obliged to block KickassTorrents too, and those not explicitly included in the court action are expected to do so voluntarily. Including major player Eircom, which has been more friendly to rights owners than most ISPs for a few years now, and which has already blocked Kickass despite not being mentioned in the injunction.
Of course proxies to help users circumvent the block are already available, with key proxies often topping the list if users Google “Kickass Torrents”. Which is, of course, something that the rights owners are trying to stop, and was part of the motivation for the recent Google polemic by Frances Moore, boss of global record industry trade body IFPI.
