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Foxtel wins case to block more piracy sites

It's bad news for 15 pirate streaming sites & 2 torrent sites, but a win for copyright material.

The Federal Court has ordered blocks on 127 domain names that allow access to 15 pirate streaming sites and 2 torrent sites, in a win for Foxtel.

Australian ISPs TPG/iiNet, Optus, Telstra and Vocus will block: Yes Movies, Vumoo, Los Movies, Cartoon HD, Putlocker, Watch Series 1, Watch Series 2, Project – Free TV, ProjectFreeTV, Watch Episodes, Watch Episode Series, Watch TV Series, The Dare TV, Putlocker9.is, Putlocker9.com, as well as Torrent sites: 1337x and Torlock.

Foxtel will be required to pay $50 for each domain with the block to remain intact for 3 years.

The win follows last year’s blocking of piracy sites and increases the number of domain names blocked to more than 250. In total, 65 major piracy sites have now been ordered to be blocked by the Federal Court.

Foxtel Chief Executive, Peter Tonagh, said, “Foxtel welcomes today’s judgment as another critical step in combating online piracy, which continues to undermine Australia’s creative industry. The Government’s passage of the site blocking legislation, and the Court’s continued willingness to impose site blocking orders, illustrates the gravity of the threat and the concern we should all have about protecting the hard work of the actors, writers, directors and production teams involved in creating the programming we all love.

“Foxtel believes in the importance of educating people that accessing pirated content is not a victimless crime and we will continue to do our part in shedding light on the seriousness of intellectual property theft, while simultaneously helping to ensure our content is available quickly, easily and at a price that suits their budgets.”

Movie studios including Disney, Universal, Warner Bros, Twentieth Century Fox and Paramount were also successful in a bid to block over 40 further pirate sites.

19 Responses

  1. Foxtel’s revenue is dominated by sport, do any of these sites “pirate” sport? Foxtel should worry about the time when Hollywood realises that it can make more money by eliminating the middlemen and the rent-seekers and deal directly with the public. Disney has made a start.
    I must look up the meaning of “cat’s paw”.

    1. Not sure it would work out that well down the track, still think the Stan, Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu model is the best for consumers. With Disney let’s say it’s $10 p/m, then HBO $10 p/m, Showcase $10 p/m, then if the likes of Sony and MGM start one and etc., we’d be back where we are now in no time if they start moving into seperate entities like Disney. Disney are likely okay doing it, not sure any other production/distribution company could get away with it, the market would be way crowded. Being able to Rent through services like Goolgle Play, iTunes, Optus, Fetch and Telstra TV is not bad, but companies going to all streaming … ouch for my hip pocket.

  2. Once again I ask what about shows that do not air in this country and never will? Conan comes to mind, it used to be on FTA but was dropped in 2013 never to be seen again, can someone tell me where I can watch it in Australia? And not just the short clips found on the Conan website? BTW I’ve got Foxtel and Netflix. Had the former for over 15 years now, don’t want to add up the cost.

  3. Its been said before, but the horse has well and truly bolted on illegal streaming, the distribution rights to shows has also changed as World wide streaming services buy commercial productions wholesale to supply binge watching audiences. Recent years have seen increases in TV drama production not less with the rise of independent production companies looking for a bigger share of the streaming market, notably from Europe, this too will have an effect on the profits of the once dominant American studios as they will have to compete in a very competitive market.

    1. Pretty sure the writers get the recognition they deserve and get paid, regardless if the finished product is downloaded or streamed and as someone else stated these sites/domains are not even in the top 30, if you know where to look. Just a PR exercise to make some people think it is getting extremely difficult to stream/download.

      1. Not entirely, in the past some producers have blamed a show’s demise on the rise of piracy. It also impacts on the capacity to commission further shows where revenue is directly affected. All sides need to recognise the arguments are a lot more involved….

  4. Strange how Foxtel use to yell out that piracy was costing them money so why no subscription price drop and that HD surcharge……. of course not one big lie

  5. Not that I’m an expert by any means, but I’d barely heard of most of these – and then only as the sort of 3rd or 4th rate sites occasionally discovered by people who mostly *don’t* pirate stuff.

    I’m not sure whether it’s part of a deliberate strategy to establish a large base of easy precendents before tackling the big ones, or if they’re only trying to stop very casual users…

    1. Pretty sure it’s a simply about trying to prevent the problem from becoming established behaviour amongst the technologically illiterate. Most others will be unaffected by this because they will already have changed which DNS they use (or have a VPN which does the same thing).

    1. Ahh that would be nice, but we’ll go back the FTA days when we all had dial up, when they can hold off programming for as long as they want, because we can’t access it elsewhere.

    2. Really you think this will make FTA get their act together? There’s a better chance of pigs flying, a Bob Katter led Govt, and every absurd thing under the sun happening.

      1. @Nathan, nope, of course not, the FTA networks will continue to not air shows that don’t rate and for some reason don’t end up on foxtel or Stan/Netflix either. They are just trying to protect their own interests. They could not give a damn about the viewers who had to previously resort to “other means” to watch their fave shows.

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