Carbon Games, a company who created AirMech last year, has been blocked by copyright filters in Portugal. The blocking of websites that promote or host copyright infringing material has been a focus for the past couple of months in Portugal. These kinds of sites include The Pirate Bay, Kickass Torrents, and Isohunt and they were able to accomplish this with no court order.

The ability to block these sites was enacted last summer when there was an agreement made between the Portuguese Ministry of Culture and the Association of Telecommunication Operators. This meant that copyright holders would be able to add these pirate websites to the black list of websites without needing to consult any court.

There had been no problems until this week when indie developer Carbon Games got blocked. If anyone in Portugal tried to access the website, they would get a message informing them that the website was blocked due to an order from the Regulatory Agency.

While a court order is not needed for a site to be added to the blacklist, there is still a process that needs to be followed. First, a copyright holder would need to file a complaint against the infringing website, then it would be investigated by an anti-piracy group called MAPINET. If the website either has at least 500 links to illegal materials or have a third of the site teaching people how to get around copyright. However, Carbon Games falls into neither category.

Since the discovery of this block, MAPINET has explained that Carbon Games isn't listed in their system and yet it still seems to be caught in this piracy block. This list is maintained by the General Inspection of Cultural Activities so this issue will likely have to be resolved on their end.

What do you think of Carbon Games getting caught up in this piracy block? Do you like the idea of this piracy block? Are there ways you think it could be done better?