Well, it’s happened. An extremely stupid, incompetent and mis-informed judge has ordered BT to block Newzbin via their CleanFeed system. CleanFeed was there for a reason and he’s just, not legitimised as such, but given those for whom CleanFeed was intended, plausible deniability for their reasons to bypass the block. I’m simply aghast at the ineptitude of this judge and his total lack of forethought or consideration for the effects of his decision.

I don’t see why the MPAA were targeting Newzbin in the first place. Are they going to attempt to block Google next for including the site in their search results? That’s roughly what it amounts to. The issue here is the rampant abuse of news groups for file distribution, and ISPs (and news group access providers) who are easily able to check and block access to these posts should be made to filter the newsgroup access.

If you’re a user of Newzbin, just think: If you attempt to access the site in a fortnight, there’s a router out there somewhere that’ll assume you’re looking for something far more sinister.