By Stewart Mitchell - pcpro
The Open Rights Group (ORG) has called on ISPs and the music industry to publish lists of the web addresses blocked in a bid to thwart piracy.
ISPs have been ordered to block some sites following court orders concerning sites, such as Newzbin and The Pirate Bay, because they enabled illegal downloading.
While the initial injunctions targeted piracy sites directly, they also allowed other sites to be blocked if they allowed access to sites via alternative addresses, with music industry lobby group the BPI providing ISPs with the rogue addresses.
"We call on ISPs and the BPI to publish the blocking lists in the name of legal transparency and public accountability"According to ORG, the lists should be transparent in order to stop legal sites being added to the lists and blocking access on the say-so of the BPI.
The Pirate Bay injunction allows the BPI ask ISP to block “www.thepiratebay.se, sub-domains and any other IP address or url whose sole or predominant purpose is to enable or facilitate access to The Pirate Bay website”.
However, this week a site called
The Promo Bay was added to the list of sites that were wrapped up with The Pirate Bay, and was blocked by the major UK ISPs.
Although launched by The Pirate Bay,
The Promo Bay site is actually a promotional platform for musicians and other creative who are happy for people to download their work in a bid to gain momentum.
ORG believes that with no external scrutiny other sites could be added to the list at the BPI's bidding, and could effectively censor parts of the web that were not meant to be part of injunctions.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/378535/isps-should-publish-list-of-blocked-sites
