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53 piracy websites blocked in battle to curb copyright breach
Singapore's amended Copyright Act, which took effect in December 2014, lets content owners seek a High Court order to get ISPs to block piracy websites. Before the revised law, they could not compel ISPs to block pirated content.
All the ISPs said they have complied with the court order to block the websites by last Friday.
According to statistics from HypeStat.com, The Pirate Bay alone attracts 2.4 million unique visitors a day globally, with about 29,000 daily visitors from Singapore.
Mr Benjamin Ang, president of the Singapore chapter of the Internet Society, a non-profit organisation, said that site blocking has limited effectiveness as the content in question can easily move to another site.
"But site blocking can prevent casual users from accessing the content for a while, and more importantly, it sends a signal to users that this content is illegal," he said.
Tech lawyer Bryan Tan of Pinsent Masons MPillay said he was surprised the action against The Pirate Bay came four years after the law was amended.
"Surely the Hollywood studios' losses from those sites would mount over time," he said.
A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on May 21, 2018, with the headline '53 piracy websites blocked in battle to curb copyright breach'. Print Edition | Subscribe
Singapore's amended Copyright Act, which took effect in December 2014, lets content owners seek a High Court order to get ISPs to block piracy websites. Before the revised law, they could not compel ISPs to block pirated content.
All the ISPs said they have complied with the court order to block the websites by last Friday.
According to statistics from HypeStat.com, The Pirate Bay alone attracts 2.4 million unique visitors a day globally, with about 29,000 daily visitors from Singapore.
Mr Benjamin Ang, president of the Singapore chapter of the Internet Society, a non-profit organisation, said that site blocking has limited effectiveness as the content in question can easily move to another site.
"But site blocking can prevent casual users from accessing the content for a while, and more importantly, it sends a signal to users that this content is illegal," he said.
Tech lawyer Bryan Tan of Pinsent Masons MPillay said he was surprised the action against The Pirate Bay came four years after the law was amended.
"Surely the Hollywood studios' losses from those sites would mount over time," he said.
A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on May 21, 2018, with the headline '53 piracy websites blocked in battle to curb copyright breach'. Print Edition | Subscribe
