UPC Austria needs to make unlawful site unavailable to clients

A Viennese court has ruled that ISP UPC needs to make it impossible for her clients to open the website Kino.to. The Austrian judge views such a measure as a last resort. But, as the site made content available from "evidently illegal" sources and the site's administrators cannot be found, the court deemed the measure proportionate if enforced by measures such as blocking the site's IP adresses and domains. Monitoring measures such as Deep Packet Inspection are deemed disproportionate.

The case closely resembles the case between Brein and Dutch ISP Ziggo of last year. In that case, a Dutch court ruled that blocking access to The Pirate Bay would be too harsh a measure as there are also legitimate uses of The Pirate Bay. Future of Copyright wrote about that case elaborately in this article.

For Brein, that appeals the verdict in the Ziggo case, this Austrian ruling is good news, says Brein's general manager Tim Kuik: "The Austrian verdict strengthens our belief that our demand for blocking will be granted in the end."