14 DAY TRIAL // Hundreds of “pirate” sites were included in a sweeping blocking order from the High Court in India. The list doesn’t just include illegal match streams, but also several Google services and even Kim Dotcom’s Mega.
The World Cup has attracted quite a few pirates interested in live streams of the matches they couldn’t get access to over their TVs. FIFA has been on the topic since before the matches even started, asking companies to have their employees ready at any time if they are to request the takedown of an illegal stream.
The entire problem comes after Multi Screen Media PVT Ltd, a Sony Entertainment Television subsidiary from India, filed a complaint with the High Court. The Sony-operated network obtained a license from FIFA to broadcast the World Cup matches to Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Pakistan.
When it noticed all the streaming links available out there, it decided to intervene asking the Court in India to order local ISPs to block user access to various websites. The list actually has a total of 479 sites, including the likes of The Pirate Bay, 1337x, Demonoid, and more.
Surprisingly, however, Google Docs is also on the list, alongside Google Video, Goo.gl, the URL shortener, as well as Mega.co.nz, Kim Dotcom’s new project.
“[Websites] listed below, or any other website identified by the Plaintiff are restrained, from in any manner hosting, streaming, broadcasting, rebroadcasting, retransmitting, exhibiting, making available for viewing and downloading, providing access to and / or communicating to the public, displaying, uploading, modifying, publishing, updating and/or sharing (including to its subscribers and users), through the internet, in any manner whatsoever,” the judge wrote, as TorrentFreak reports.
Without many questions, the judge ordered the blockade of the entire batch of sites, including Google’s. He also added a very open invitation for the network to add more sites in the future, by saying that the blockade extends to such other “websites that may subsequently be notified by the Plaintiff to be infringing of its exclusive rights.”
Some ISPs have already started to comply with the order, but Google has said that there’s been no interruption to the services mentioned in the order. Perhaps someone finally used some common sense and excluded Google Docs from the list, as well as all the other perfectly legitimate sites.
It’s unclear if the blockade will last until the World Cup is over or if it will be expanded into the future.