Australian Court Orders ISPs To Block 181 'Pirate' Domains, Including Subtitle Sites

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: This week the Federal Court has issued the largest pirate site blocking injunction thus far in Australia, judging by the number of targeted sites. The case in question was filed by Village Roadshow, Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount, Columbia, Universal, Warner, and others, targeting 78 pirate 'locations.' The list of targets includes IPTorrents, BT-Scene, Fmovies, Putlocker, RuTracker, KissAnime, NYAA, Torrentday, YIFY-movies and various others. In total, the injunction lists 181 domain names. Interestingly, the court order also targets several subtitle sites. The injunction lists OpenSubtitles, YifySubtitles, and SubScene, for example. While these sites don't host or link to infringing videos, the movie companies argued that the sites are 'communicating to the public a literary work,' referencing the screenplay.

The list of ISPs that are required to implement the blockades includes Telstra, Optus, Vocus, TPG, Vodafone, and several subsidiaries. The blocking measures have to be implemented within 15 days, through DNS blocking, IP-address blocking, or any other means agreed with the rightsholder. This order will remain valid for a period of three years. If required, the rightsholders can then apply for an extension. The movie companies must also pay ISPs to implement the blocking measures but, at the rate of $50 per domain name, that's not going to be a problem.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.