This week British Telecom (BT) began a court ordered block of Newzbin 2. Newzbin 2 is a members-only site which aggregates “illegally copied material" commonly shared in Usenet discussion forums. The site is being blocked thanks to the legal actions of the Motion Picture Association, who managed to get a UK court to block the site. The MPA describes Newzbin as a "criminal organization whose business model is based on wholesale copyright infringement". Newzbin likely has a similar opinion of the MPA and organizations like it. BT told the BBC that the block began on November 2.
"We've heard that the British Telecom censorship of the free web has begun," the group behind Newzbin 2 told the BBC.
It also said that 93.5 percent of its active UK users have downloaded workaround software developed by them to bypass the block. The group would not divulge how it worked.
The first version of the Windows program Newzbin2 was released in September with Apple’s OSX and Linux in the works, according to the group.
"Newzbin2 shall go on, its users shall continue to access the site and its facilities," the Newzbin team told the BBC. "Nothing has changed and they [the MPA] have no change after paying millions of dollars in legal fees."
Source: BBC
