Indian ISP blocks popular file-sharing sites over movie leak

Not to be outdone by other countries’ recent bids to curb piracy, a court in India has granted a request that local ISP Reliance Communications cut off its customers from popular file-sharing sites in order to limit piracy of a single new movie.

The Times of India reported that Mumbai-based broadband company Reliance Communications blocked customers from popular file-sharing sites including Megaupload and BitTorrent after its own offshoot Reliance Entertainment produced a “John Doe” court order. The company was essentially served by itself.

Reliance Entertainment Vice President of Music and Anti-Piracy Sanjay Tandon said that the legal maneuvering was a last ditch effort to stymie online piracy of the new action movie “Don 2,” which was leaked online ahead of its December 23 theatrical debut. (One guess which company was behind the film’s release. Yup.)

“Steps such as the John Doe order are the only step that we copyright owners are left with,” Tandon said, adding that Megaupload and Filesonic “rampantly promote online piracy.”

Megaupload founder Kim Schmitz looked at the bright side, telling Torrent Freak that the block gives site visitors the opportunity to test out the Megakey application. “The Megakey instantly cures any kind of ISP or DNS blockade and always finds the fastest route to our servers,” Schmitz claimed.

Some Internet experts have speculated that killing access to sites hosting infringing content, or even the sites themselves, is barely a temporary solution – that pirates will always find a way to pirate. Copyright holders around the world have resoundingly disagreed, pushing for court orders against ISPs in several countries this year.

A Belgian court ordered leading ISPs Belgacom and Telenet to block The Pirate Bay in October. Finnish ISP Elisa was told to do the same or face heavy fines. And last month, British Telecommunications blocked usenet index site Newzbin2 from its customers’ computer screens.

With SOPA and PROTECT IP still alive and kicking, U.S. customers could be next. (via TorrentFreak)