London: Internet Service Providers in the United Kingdom have begun blocking access to many of the biggest sharing sites that carry illegal content, as per the orders of a high court. They include Pirate Bay.
The step is being taken to battle the growth of online piracy.
The case was brought before the court by rights holders, and it was agreed that the ISPs would ban sites on a list that could be regularly updated.
Rights holders include the music industry body BPI and the Premier League.
The BBC quoted the BPI, as saying, "Under existing BPI blocking orders relating to 63 illegal websites, ISPs are required to block the illegal sites themselves, and proxies and proxy aggregators whose sole or predominant purpose is to give access to the illegal sites."
Among the blocked sites are piratebayproxy.co.uk, piratebayproxylist.com and ukbay.org.
According to BBC, the operator of UKBay.org, identified just as Dan, told piracy news website TorrentFreak that the new bans were "totally unreasonable".
"If they continue blocking sites that link sites, there'll be nothing left," he added.
