Within 15 days, starting today, Australian Internet companies are obliged to implement a new Federal Court law and block the access of Isohunt, Torrentz, Torrenthound and Solar Movie to all of their users, the Australian news site ABC News reports. Five online streaming and torrent download sites in total have been put to court by local copyright protection companies Foxtel and Village Roadshow due to extensive copyright infringements. As four of the mentioned pirated media sharing sites have already lost their cases, Kickass Torrent is still undergoing trial and currently remains active. Nevertheless, looking at the cases of its counterparts, it is very likely that the site is very likely to meet the same faith in the near future.
Although such new ruling may come as an inconvenience to the users who are already accustomed to downloading torrents and watching movies or listening to music, copyright agencies’ representatives claim that it is all for the better. Peter Tonagh, the head of Foxtel, emphasizes the importance of respecting the content creators and hopes that their efforts will make more people realize that accessing the copyrighted content is actually a theft. Their partners at Village Roadshow echo these statement and promise to be back to court with 50 more cases of illegal media distribution. Both of the companies agreed to pay the Internet providers a free of 50 USD for every blocked domain. When inquired about VPN services that allow connecting to the blocked site by creating a virtual IP address located in another country, both companies assured that it would not be the problem since such services are paid too. They believe that raising awareness will naturally lead the users to obtain the desired content legally, instead of trying to bypass the ban and dive into the dirty pirating business even deeper.
The case of Australia is not unprecedented. Some media sharing websites have already been banned and are currently blocked in numerous countries including Argentina, China, Germany or Netherlands. Even in the countries where such sites can be accessed freely, downloading or sharing copyrighted content is still illegal and punishable by law. Besides, it is no secret that pirated content is often used by hackers to distribute malware. If you do not live in a country which blocks torrent sites, you may use them, but remember that at the end of the they it is YOU who might end up with Cerber ransomware on your computer.
Jake Doe is the news editor at UGetFix. Since he met Ugnius Kiguolis in 2003, they both launched several projects that spread awareness about cybercrimes, malware, and other computer-related problems.
