Online piracy is usually associated with music, movies, and software. But the ever-growing popularity of ereaders such as the Amazon Kindle has also led to a burgeoning ebook piracy scene. The UK has been trying to clamp down on piracy recently, and the latest target is a raft of sites offering illegal downloads of ebooks.
We've already seen the government would like to restrict access to some online content such as porn, and torrent sites have been blocked at ISP level. Now a High Court ruling means that a number of big ISPs are to be forced to block access to major ebook sites.
Ebookee, LibGen, and Freshwap all need to be rendered inaccessible by BT, Virgin Media, Sky, TalkTalk, and EE within ten days, reports TorrentFreak. The action comes after an application was made by The Publishers Association which was concerned about the impact piracy sites are having on sales.
In all, ISPs will be required to block Ebookee, LibGen, Freshwap, AvaxHome, Bookfi, Bookre, and Freebookspot which the complainants say comprise 80 percent of pirate material. As with attempts to block access to torrent sites, while restrictions put in place by ISPs will certainly have some impact on ebook piracy, it is not going to eradicate the problem overnight. Simple tools such as VPNs and proxies are all that are needed to bypass ISP blocks.
Photo credit: koya979 / Shutterstock
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