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UK Music Industry to Block Tens of BitTorrent and File Sharing Sites Including Grooveshark

The music industry is very happy with the results of the censorship campaign so far

May 15, 2013 14:01 GMT  ·  By
The BPI is targeting dozens of music sites
   The BPI is targeting dozens of music sites

Spurred by the great success of blocking The Pirate Bay and recently several other large BitTorrent sites, it seems that the music industry is now pushing to have several more file sharing and streaming sites blocked in the UK.

More than several, in fact, as this is going to be the biggest move of its kind in the country. TorrentFreak has managed to get ahold of a list of sites that the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) will try and probably succeed in getting blocked.

The group is now asking record labels and music licensing groups if any of the targets do, in fact, have a legitimate deal in place.

With The Pirate Bay, KickassTorrents, H33T, and Fenopy already blocked, the BPI is moving to slightly smaller BitTorrent sites.

Next on BPI's list are 1337x, BitSnoop, ExtraTorrent, Isohunt, TorrentReactor, TorrentCrazy, Monova, Torrentdownloads and TorrentHound, in the "BitTorrent" category.

Also on the list is Torrentz, a BitTorrent meta search engine that links to absolutely no BitTorrent files itself.

Cyberlocker sites are also targeted, Filestube, Filecrop, Filetram, and Rapidlibrary are on the list. MP3 search engines and download sites like BeeMP3, Dilandau, MP3juices, MP3lemon, MP3raid and MP3skull, Abmp3, Bomb-mp3, Emp3world, and Newalbumreleases are all targeted.

The most surprising site on the list though is Grooveshark, which, while operating in rather murky legal ground, hasn't been considered a pirate site.

While the major music labels have sued Grooveshark, the lawsuits are still ongoing in the US. Grooveshark actually had a licensing deal with EMI, though that deal fell out due to contract issues.

Still, Grooveshark is operating as usual and is still churning out new features and products. Including it on a list of sites to be blocked in the UK, with little due process, is a bold move.

But considering how well the censorship campaign has gone so far, it shouldn't be too surprising if the BPI manages to censor tens of sites in one fell swoop without actually having to prove that any of them are illegal, it just has to claim they are.