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Village Roadshow wins court order to block 76 overseas video piracy websites

Telstra, Optus, Vocus, TPG, and Vodafone are required to block the sites within 15 days.
Written by Campbell Kwan, Contributor

Village Roadshow has emerged victorious yet again in its legal battle against piracy, with the Australian Federal Court granting an application for carriage services providers (CSPs) to block 76 overseas hosted websites that linked, streamed, or torrented movies and TV shows.

The case, initially filed in December last year, was headed by Village Roadshow and comprised of a group of studios consisting of Disney, Columbia, Universal, Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Warner Bros, and Madmen Anime Studios.

At court on Wednesday, Justice Nicholas ordered an injunction under section 115A of the Copyright Act for the CSPs -- Telstra, Optus, Vocus, TPG, and Vodafone -- to take reasonable steps to block their customers from accessing the 76 sites that infringed copyright. 

See also: Game of Thrones has the most malware of any pirated TV show (CNET)  

Under section 115A, the court can order for CSPs to disable access to an online location outside Australia if it has the primary effect of facilitating infringement of copyright.

The studios will pay a AU$50 fee per domain they want to block, with the websites to be blocked within 15 business days. ISPs that fail to take reasonable steps will be required to notify Roadshow of the steps it has implemented.

The judgment follows Roadshow Films winning piracy cases against smart TV box websites and sites providing subtitle files in 2018. 

It also upholds the trend of Australian courts blocking hundreds of torrenting and streaming websites in an increasingly speedy way after the amendment to the site-block laws were passed in late November.

The amendment allows for faster blocks of mirror sites, reduces the burden of proving that a site is hosted outside of Australia, and expands the legislation to sites that not only have the "primary purpose", but also to those that have the "primary effect" of infringing copyright, the government said at the time.

The sites that will be blocked as a result of Justice Nicholas' Wednesday orders are: 01torrent.net; 1movies.nl; 1movies.biz; 1movies.pl; 1movies.ch; 1movies.is; 300mbfilms.co; 9putlocker.io; afdah.info; afdah.to; arawatch.video; cafehulu.com; cartoonson.tv; cartoonsons.com; dafreetv.net; dafree2.com; tvdafree.com; filmlinks4u.is; gamatotv.co; gamatotv.me; gostream.site; greek-movies.com; iomovies.to; kat.tv; monova.to; 2movierulz.com; movierulz.ht; movierulz.gd; movierulz.pl; 2movierulz.ms; 2movierulz.st; movierulzfree.me; moviewatcher.is; moviewatcher.io; o2tvseries.com; onlinemoviewatch.org; onlinemoviewatch.to; otorrents.com; putlocker0.com; putlocker0.fyi; putlockerr.is; putlockers.co; putlockers.movie; putlockers.net; putlockers.tf; putlockers.id; putlockers.tv; putlockertv.ac; putlockerstv.se; putlockertv.ist; putlockertv.to; rainierland.is; scr.cr; seehd.pl; series9.io; solarmoviex.to; speed.cd; srstop.in; srstop.online; streamlord.com; swatchseries.to; tamilyogi.nu; tamilyogi.fm; tamilyogi.cc; toonova.net; toptvshows.co; toptvshows.io; torrenting.com; tt.smallfoot.me; torrentking.eu; torrentking.to; torrentking.site; torrentleech.org; torrentwal.net; torrentyeah.com; uwatchfree.online; uwatchfree.info; uwatchfree.se; uwatchfree.tv; watchcartoonsonline.la; vtv16.com; watchonline.red; woohay.com; xpau.se; yify.is; yifyhdtorrent.com; ymovies.tv; anime1.com; animedao.com; animeheaven.eu; animehub.ac; animeland.us; animeland.cc; animepahe.com; animerush.tv; chia-anime.tv; dubbedanime.net; horriblesubs.info; hotanime.me; justdubs.org; justdubsanime.net; kickassanime.io; nwanime.tv; toonget.net.

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