Australian pay television company Foxtel is urging domestic internet providers to disable access to 128 domains that have been linked with facilitating or engaging in online copyright infringement, according to latest reports. Of the domain names being targeted, 68 of them belong to The Pirate Bay, with other BitTorrent supporting sites like Torrentz, KickassTorrents, etc also included in the list.
Foxtel is currently involved in a lawsuit against 35 Australian ISPs for allowing such websites to function in the country.
As stated in the Australian Copyright Amendment Act of 2015, content rights holders can obtain a court order to block websites hosted overseas that are believed to exist for the primary purpose of infringing or support of infringement of copyright under section 115A.
Speaking about the ongoing court case, Foxtel’s general counsel foresees a lengthy procedure:
There has been correspondence going around and around for some months. We would like to come to some kind of landing point on that, where people make their positions clear by a certain point.
In 2016, Foxtel was successful in its quest to have websites like The Pirate Bay, Torrentz, TorrentHound, IsoHunt, and SolarMovie blocked by more than 50 ISPs in Australia including Telstra, Optus, Vocus and TPG.