Romanian ISPs to Block The Pirate Bay Following Hollywood Complaint

While Hollywood has yet to have any ‘pirate’ sites blocked by Internet service providers in the United States, over in Europe the picture is rather more intense.

At least 17 countries in the European Union now have active site-blocking programs, at last count blocking more than 1,800 sites and 5,300 related domains. This week, action by several major Hollywood studios came to fruition, adding Romania to the list.

In July 2017, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal City Studios, Universal Cable, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Disney, Columbia Pictures, and Sony Pictures targeted multiple Romanian ISPs with demands to block three pirate sites.

Of course, top of the list was The Pirate Bay, the torrent site with a reputation for being the galaxy’s most resilient, despite being blocked all around the world by dozens of ISPs. Also targeted were Filmehd.net and Filmeonline2013.biz, two movie and TV show streaming portals that are particularly popular with locals.

According to a brief decision published by the Romanian Ministry of Justice, several ISPs including market leader RCS & RDS, Telekom Romania, UPC Romania, Digital Cable Systems, AKTA Telecom, and Nextgen Communication were defendants in the case and are now required to block a long list of domains (see below).

The decision, which is underpinned by a ruling on site-blocking handed down by the European Court of Justice in 2017, is the first of its kind in Romania.

The decision is not yet final and can be appealed within 30 days to the Bucharest Court of Appeal. It is not clear if any of the ISPs intend to do so.

The decision requires the defendant ISPs to implement what appears to be a straightforward DNS blocking regime on fixed-line services. This means that customers of the affected ISPs may be able to switch to a secondary DNS provider (such as Google or OpenDNS) to evade the blocks, once they’ve been put in place.

As revealed earlier this year, The Pirate Bay is now being blocked in at least 19 countries, including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.

As a result of this widespread blocking, there are now hundreds of ways to access the site, via alternative domains, mirrors, proxies, VPNs and even Tor. A huge ecosystem of third-party sites has sprung up to facilitate access to the site, with new domains appearing on a regular basis.

That goes some way to explaining why the Romanian order is so lengthy. Not only does it block ThePirateBay.org, but dozens of other domains, as listed below.

Domains to be blocked according to the latest Romanian decision

FilmeHD – filmehd.net

FilmeOnline2013 – filmeonline2013.biz

The Pirate Bay – thepiratebay.org, http://fbay.maik.rocks, http://bayproxy.net, http://thepiratebayz.org, http://tpb.portalimg.com, https://fastpiratebay.co.uk, https://gameofbay.org, https://ikwilthepiratebay.org, https://oldbayproxy.eu, https://pirate.trade, https://piratebay.click, https://piratebay.red, https://piratebayblocked.corn, https://piratebaymirror.eu, https://piratebayproxy.be, https://piratebayproxy.tf, https://piratebays.co, https://piratebays.co. uk, https://pirateproxy.cam, https://pirateproxy.dick, https://pirateproxy.sh, https://pirateproxy.tf, https://pirateproxy.wf, https://pirateproxy.yt, https://thebay.tv, https://thehiddenbay.cc, https://thehiddenbay.fi, https://thehiddenbay.info, https://thehiddenbay.ws, https://thepiratebay.bypassed.st, https://thepiratebay.co.in, https://thepiratebay.rocks, https://thepiratebay.uk.net, https://thepiratebay.unblocker.cc, https://thepiratebay-proxy.com, https://tpbbay.eu, https://tpbmirror.us, https://tpbunblocked.org, https://ukpirate.dick, https://ukpirate.org, https://ukpirateproxy.xyz, https://unblockedbay.info, https://urbanproxy.eu

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

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