Film-makers are going to court in a bid to block access to a site that links to pirated versions of popular movies. In a UK legal first, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) has applied for an injunction that would force BT to cut off customers' access to Newzbin. The MPA, the industry body for a number of movie studios, said it was targeting BT first as the largest internet service provider in the UK. BT confirmed it would be in court later but did not make any further comment. The MPA wants BT to block Newzbin with the same system that stops access to sites hosting child sex abuse images. The members-only website aggregates a large amount of the illegally copied material found on Usenet discussion forums. The MPA is the international arm of the Motion Picture Association of America - the industry body representing movie studios such as Warner, Sony, Fox, Disney and Paramount. It brought its action against BT because, as well as being the largest ISP in the UK with more than 5.6 million customers, BT supplies the site-blocking system known as Cleanfeed to many other big UK ISPs. Success in the courts may mean the blocking spreads to those other operators. Read more here.
