Hollywood just won a UK court order that updates itself every time pirates switch domains
Key Points
- The UK High Court has issued a dynamic site-blocking order in Columbia Pictures and others v BT and others (IL-2025-000240), handed down in early May 2026
- Six ISPs are named: BT, EE, Plusnet, Virgin Media, Sky and TalkTalk; claimants include Columbia Pictures, Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Universal and Warner Bros
- The order lets rights holders block new pirate streaming domains, mirrors and rebrands without filing a fresh court application each time
- Grounded in Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988; initial duration six months with ex-post reporting and judicial oversight
- The MPA welcomed the ruling and has cited it in a WIPO submission on intermediary involvement in site blocking
Hollywood studios have won a UK High Court order that forces the country’s largest internet providers to block pirate streaming sites the moment new domains appear.
The ruling in Columbia Pictures Industries and others v British Telecommunications and others (Case ID: IL-2025-000240), handed down in early May 2026, names six major ISPs as respondents: BT, EE, Plusnet, Virgin Media, Sky and TalkTalk.
The claimants include Columbia Pictures, Disney, Netflix, Paramount, Universal and Warner Bros.
The order applies to a category the court describes as “structurally infringing audiovisual piracy services” that meet defined criteria, allowing rights holders to add new targets without filing a fresh application each time.
The mechanism is designed to address the evasion tactics pirate operators use to defeat traditional site blocking.
Operators routinely switch domains within hours of being blocked, register batches of replacement addresses in advance, clone their interfaces under generic or non-branded names, and chain redirects across multiple lookalike sites.
Previous orders covered specific domains and, from around 2022, named “pirate brands”, but each new mirror or rebrand typically required a separate court process to add to the blocklist.
The order is grounded in Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which has underpinned UK site-blocking practice since the High Court first applied it to pirate sites in 2011.
The court found the broader scope necessary and proportionate given the scale of piracy, the rights holders’ history of responsible use of blocking orders, and the absence of any expansion of intermediary liability for the ISPs themselves.
The initial order lasts six months and is extendable, with ex-post reporting on implementation and effectiveness preserving judicial oversight.
The Motion Picture Association, which coordinated the studios’ application, called the decision a vital tool for protecting creators and consumers from piracy-related harms while supporting a well-functioning internet.
Karyn Temple, Senior Executive Vice President and Global General Counsel at the MPA, described the order as a balanced, evidence-based and proportionate approach to enforcement in an evolving online environment.
The MPA has since cited the ruling in a World Intellectual Property Organisation submission on intermediary involvement in site blocking.
The full judgment has not yet been published on BAILII, leaving the precise criteria for adding sites, the safeguards against overblocking and the implementation mechanics dependent on MPA summaries and ISP guidance for now.
