PLDT, Smart, Globe to Block all Torrents Sites to Curb Online Piracy

12/14/2015 – Manila | The Philippine Government is pushing the ISPs hard to battle online piracy following the shutdown of the world’s biggest online piracy site The Pirate Bay. Rep. Irwin Tieng, the author of House Bill 6187 said only Internet service Providers can stop online piracy.

The Pirate Bay, the biggest online piracy site has been shut down by Swedish Police last December 9 after police raided its data center. Online authorities say that the closure of the giant site does not help lessen online piracy and also asks ISP’s cooperation.

In United States, ISP providers like Verizon traces illegal downloads and customers who found guilty of downloading illegal and pirated material receives warning. ISPs in US are working together with Law Enforcement Authorities. Philippines is asking the same cooperation from Globe and PLDT, the country’s leading Internet Service Providers.

Internet experts say Globe and PLDT can help by blocking domains and IP addresses of torrents sites, or by blocking downloading pirated content like movies, paid software, songs, images, and other digital products.

Philippines has more than 37M Internet users who are responsible for more than 1 million illegal downloads per day. Most downloaded products are games and movies according to Gizmodo.

The Philippine’s Anti Piracy Law would penalize people who illegally download with a minimum two-year jail sentence and fines of 50,000 to 150,000 Philippine pesos. ($1,200-$3,600). With government’s limited technology on monitoring and catching perpetrators, the illegal downloads can be stopped if ISP cooperates.

Representatives from both companies already responded positively and the blocking of torrents sites will be expected any time on the first quarter of 2015. ISPs under PLDT like Smart Communications has implemented Fair Usage Policy that outraged most customers but it didn’t help. It created more problems than solution.

The new move is expected to face strong negative reaction from netizens especially online gamers and movie fans according to Golez of Cybercrime Watch, but must be implemented asap to protect artists and legal copyright owners.

See Also: Defamation: Why MTRCB Should Ban All Korean Drama in Philippines

/Leony Elefante/Assisted Press Manila

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