Songs-pk what happened...

[xTra]

Tried going to songs-pk, got this in return:

"This website/URL has been blocked until further notice either pursuant to Court orders or on the Directions issued by the Department of Telecommunications"

Anyone else in India getting the same.

 

[Doctor Death]

Songs.pk blocked in India

Friday, February 17th, 2012 by Team PI

The popular music site, Songs.pk will be blocked in India, as per a ruling by Calcutta high court.

“Two industry bodies and one music company have sought a legal restraint on 11 companies to block access to the music website

Phonographic Performance Ltd, The Indian Music Industry, and Sagarika Music Pvt Ltd are seeking a restraint on Internet access to download, stream, disseminate, and reproduce copyright music on this site, according to a public notice.”

The Court has passed an Injunction order, asking all ISPs to block access to the website through methods such as DNS name blocking, IP address blocking via routers, and DPI based URL blocking.

The petitioners had sought the now familiar route of blocking access to the site from within India, naming ISPs like Dishnet Wireless Ltd, Reliance Wimax Ltd, Hathway Cable & Datacom Pvt Ltd, Hughes Communications Ltd India, Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd, Reliance Communications Infrastructure Ltd, Wipro Ltd, Sify Technologies Ltd, Bharti Airtel Ltd, Vodafone India Ltd, and BG Broadband India Pvt Ltd in the petition.

We are still able to access Songs.pk (the site is not accessible from Airtel network anymore) while I write this post. The implementation of blocks are typically not pervasive, and we’ve seen instances of sites being blocked across some ISPs, and not across others. This route (blocking via ISPs) is being preferred a lot these days and is becoming one that actually works a fair bit too.

This definitely is good news for the music industry and for the whole “anti-piracy” drive. What we do have to wait and see what the implication is on numerous other such websites, in fact also a lot of file sharing websites.

Aside, we came across the Song.pk app on Android Market too. We fail to understand why Google encouraged an app that would increase piracy. After this verdict, will Google also follow suit?

Meanwhile, if you are unable to access Songs.pk, do share the info in the comments section.

Songs.pk blocked in India