Thee three main Belgian ISPs Proximus, Telenet and VOO are joining with right holders and are now blocking 33 websites and 450 domains on copyright grounds.
People who are now trying to access these sites will see an ‘online fair play’ message from the Belgian Entertainment Association (BEA).
After a year-long legal dispute, the film and music industry and the main internet service providers have decided, on the basis of a joint request, to go to the Brussels French Commercial Court. This case was held in March 2018.
The European legislator has set up a mechanism that allows the national judge to issue injunctions to order suppliers to block access to the websites.
The BEA and Internet service providers have agreed on a list of 33 websites and 450 domain names that they believe are guilty of facilitating illegal downloads.
The responsible actors want to demonstrate that it is possible to stop piracy via procedural law.
By mutual agreement, the access providers and the BEA therefore decided to submit a common list to the judge and to comply with the latter’s judgment. This solution should make it possible to avoid a lengthy procedure in a constantly evolving area. Moreover, the parties informed the judge that they reserved the right to represent themselves before him over time in order to update the list in question.