Intellectual Property Magazine
The road ahead for online service providers
United Kingdom
Toby Headdon examines the reasoning behind Arnold J's decision to order BT to block user access to infringing site Newzbin2
In Newzbin1
1 a number of film studios obtained an injunction against Newzbin Ltd which operated a website from the UK that enabled users
to fileshare copyright infringing content including films and TV programmes. The injunction effectively signalled the demise
of the Newzbin website, or so it seemed until the emergence of a very similar website using servers located in Sweden. This
prompted the film studios to seek and obtain a further injunction, this time against BT in Newzbin2
2 based on Section 97A(1) of the CDPA 1988, which gives the court the power to grant an injunction against a service provider.