It’s estimated that 200,000 Irish users access Pirate Bay and other illegal file-sharing sites on a monthly basis.
The major record companies who’ve taken the action – EMI, Sony, Warner Music and Universal – claim that this is causing them annual losses of €20 million.
Mr. Justice Brian McGovern was upholding a previous ruling that internet service providers (ISPs) play an active role in ensuring that copyright law is upheld.
“There is no doubt but that this activity has caused, and continues to cause, substantial financial damage to the plaintiffs,” the Justice notes.
Eircom had already voluntarily offered to block Pirate Bay, which according to experts working on behalf of the record companies generates $36 billion a year in advertising revenue.
UPC had made their stance clear last week in a statement that said: “Piracy in general is a collective and industry-wide concern. From a UPC perspective, we firmly believe people should pay for content they consume.”

“As an industry, Pay-TV has pioneered encryption technology to prevent piracy of the TV signal. However, we have no visibility as to what users do online.”

“Our position is that ISPs should not, on a voluntary basis, decide what can or should be consumed by users.”
According to muso.com who scan the web for illegal files – and then do their best to remove them – some of the most pirated albums at the moment are Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories (596 illegal files); Rod Stewart’s Time (378); The National’s Trouble Will Find Me (208) and Texas’ The Conversation (157).
Meanwhile, one of Pirate Bay’s Swedish founders, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, is being sought in connection with a hack on a series of Danish databases, which contain such sensitive information as driving licence records, social security numbers and official emails.