French Court Orders Search Engines, ISPs To Block Pirate Sites

rtoz sends word that a French court has ordered Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft to remove 16 unauthorized video streaming sites from their search results. Many ISPs were also ordered to block access to the sites. According to TorrentFreak, "The court ruled that the film industry had clearly demonstrated that the sites in question are 'dedicated or virtually dedicated to the distribution of audiovisual works without the consent of their creators,' thus violating their copyrights. As a result the search services of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and local company Orange are now under orders to 'take all necessary measures to prevent the occurrence on their services of any results referring to any of the pages' on these sites. Several ISPs – Orange, Free, Bouygues Télécom, SFR, Numéricable and Darty Télécom were also ordered to 'implement all appropriate means including blocking' to prevent access to the infringing sites."

Comments

Re:So French

[globaljustin]

"So French"

We do have to look at this news through the 'french' lens...their courts and legal system are Kafkaesque (ha!)

will the block go into effect immediately or is this conditional upon appeal to a higher court before it goes into effect?

it's dumb of course, as another poster said they'll just use different URL's or imbed the players in other sites...