Internet Service Providers And The Fight Against Online Copyright Infringement

Section 97A of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 empowers the High Court to "to grant an injunction against a service provider, where that service provider has actual knowledge of another person using their service to infringe copyright".

In the last 5 years both the film and music industries have relied upon s.97A to force ISPs to block access to infringing websites. The cases establish that in order for the High Court to grant a s.97A injunction four matters must be established:

(i) the defendant must be a service provider; (ii) users and/or the operators of the target website must infringe...