Australian court orders blocking of subtitle piracy sites

Roadshow has emerged victorious in its latest legal battle against piracy, with the Australian Federal Court on Thursday ordering internet services providers (ISPs) to block piracy subtitle websites.

Under the judgement [PDF] handed down by Justice Nicholas, ISPs including Telstra, Optus, Vocus, TPG, and Vodafone have 15 business days to serve orders demanding website takedown.

ISPs must also do one or more of the following: enact DNS Blocking of the domain names highlighted in the judgement; block the IP addresses as well as any websites that re-route to the aforementioned websites; block the URLs associated with the subtitle websites; as well as perform what it can to disable access to the online locations.

Failure to do the above, Nicholas J wrote, will require ISPs to notify Roadshow within 15 business days of the steps it has implemented.

Domain names to be blocked are: 2ddl, 8maple.ru, 9anime.is, Addic7ed, Anilinkz, Animefreak, Animeshow, Avxhm, azmaple.com, Bilutv, Bt-scene, Cartooncrazy, Cmovieshd, DailyTVFix, Ddlvalley, Dnvod, dramacity.io, dramahk.me, Fmovies.io, Glodls, Gogoanime, Hdpopcorns, hindilinks4u.to, hkfree.co, icdrama.se, icdramase, ilovehks.com, IPTorrents, Kantv, Kimcartoon, Kissanime, kisscartoon.ac, m4ufree.com, Masterani.me, Myanimeseries, Nyaa, Nzbplanet, Ondarewatch, Openloadmovies, Opensubtitles.org, Otakustream, Phimbathu, Putlocker.ac, Putlockerhd.co, qooxi.net, Rmz, Rutracker.org, Scnsrc, Seasonvar, Seriesfree, Solarmoviez, Soul-anime, streamtvb.com, Subscene, Subsmovies, Torrentday, Torrentfunk, Torrentmovies, Tvbox, Tw116, Two-movies, Ultra-vid, Usabit, VexMovies, viewasian.tv, Vkool, Vmovee, Watchanimeonline.me, Watchcartoononline.com, Watchcartoononline.io, Watchonlinemovies, Watchseries-online, woaikanxi.cc, Yify-movies, Yifysubtitles, Ymovies.tv, Zimuzu, and Zooqle.

Instead of displaying an end user with the website of the to-be blocked sites, ISPs must deploy, within five business days, a landing page that informs the individual why they cannot access the intended site, specifically noting: "The Federal Court of Australia has determined that it infringes or facilitates the infringement of copyright".

The orders will be operational for three years.

In its application to have the court order blocks against these websites, Roadshow argued this order was "no different" from the rest of the piracy site-block applications, despite the sites that are to be blocked being different due to not having audio or visual content.

In making his judgement on Thursday, Nicholas J said that while the case was different to those he had heard previously, it was similar and thus resulted in a similar determination.

Roadshow was also ordered to pay compliance costs for the telcos, which has been calculated at the rate of AU$50 per domain name blocked.

The judgement follows debate earlier this month of whether subtitles constitute a literary work, with counsel for Roadshow saying the coalition involved in this case can be categorised into three groups, with the first targeting subtitle files, the second -- TVB -- targeting Chinese films and TV show piracy in Australia, and the third seeking to block sites making Japanese anime films and TV shows available.

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