Just a couple of days after most of the major U.S. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) instituted a new six strikes rule to curb illegal downloads, a U.K. court has further tightened controls on its domestic users by ordering the blockade of several well-known bittorrent websites.

The sites included in the ban are H33T, Fenopy, and perhaps the one of the best-known torrent sites, Kickass Torrents.

This effort to take down these sites was led by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), a U.K. non-profit organization similar to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the U.S. Last year, BPI led a similar effort to cut U.K. users off from The Pirate Bay. But, according to a BBC report, the blockade had only a temporary effect on users, with U.K. usage of the site returning to normal levels shortly thereafter.

The U.K. blocking order reveals a somewhat more stringent stance toward piracy than the recent measures carried out in the U.S. Under the new U.S. Copyright Alert System, ISPs will send warnings to customers as a means to alert them that possible peer-to-peer (P2P) piracy activity has been detected via their connection. Each ISP will decide how to warn customers and subsequently attempt to curb alleged illegal file sharing activity.

For example, Verizon will send a series of warnings, and after the fifth the alleged copyright infringer's Internet connection will be slowed significantly for up to three days. Alternatively, Comcast's system will send a similar series of warnings, and after the fourth the user will be constantly met with browser pop-ups alerting them of their status until the customer contacts the ISP to resolve the issue. For its part, Comcast has formally stated on its website: "We will never use account termination as a mitigation measure under the CAS (Copyright Alert System)."

The U.K. ISPs participating in the new, court ordered blockade include Virgin Media, Sky, O2, EE, TalkTalk, and BT.

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