Major film studios, including Warner Brothers and Disney have asked the high court to force BT to block a website which they allege infringes copyright on a large scale.
The site, Newzbin2, is host to thousands of downloadable movies, games, TV programmes, and books. The hearing is seen as a test case and could pave the way for more rights owners to pursue legal action against ISPs to force them to block infringing sites.
The film industry first took action against Newzbin last year, and the high court ordered that it should remove all pirated material from the site and pay damages to the companies involved. Newzbin Ltd went into administration following the ruling, but a new version of the site, Newzbin2 appeared shortly afterwards, highlighting the difficulty in using the courts to deal with internet piracy.
Last week it was revealed that a coalition of rights holders, including the Premier League, the BPI, and the Motion Picture Association have lobbied the government to allow websites which are identified as persistent infringers of copyright to be blocked.
