According to Theguardian.com, The High Court in the UK has ruled that Internet Service Providers (ISP) must try to block sites selling counterfeit goods at their own cost.
“The case was brought by luxury brands in the Richemont/Cartier group, demanding that the UK’s five major ISPs – BSkyB, BT, EE, TalkTalk, and VirginMedia – block six websites sporting fake versions of their brands and selling counterfeit goods.
Richemont stated that these were the first in a line-up of 239,000 potentially infringing sites.”
“The six obscure websites at the center of the case were not indexed, not searchable, and there was no proof of their access and use in the UK other than their names. They are cartierloveonline.com, iwcwatchtop.com, replicawatchesiwc.com, 1iwc.com, montblancpensonlineuk.com and montblancoutletonline.co.uk.”
“Though the costs of blocking one website are minor, the attractiveness of this remedy to rightholders means that this is likely to have significant cumulative effect, placing a large burden on businesses that already suffer the heat of overzealous copyright enforcers and surveillance hoarders.”
“The judge relied on the fact that ISPs had already innovated, under political pressure, to block child abuse images and institute parental controls, so had the infrastructure necessary to block counterfeit websites.”
