Following a European trend, the Portuguese Intellectual Property Court has ordered local ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay. The legal action, brought by copyright holders, resulted in an injunction which orders the ISPs to block access to the popular torrent site and dozens of its proxies.

As the archrival of many copyright groups, The Pirate Bay has become one of the most censored websites on the Internet in recent years.

Courts all around the world have ordered Internet providers to block subscriber access to the torrent site and the list continues to expand.

Last month French ISPs started blocking The Pirate Bay and last week the Intellectual Property Court in Portugal ordered a similar measure against local Internet providers.

The case was brought by the Association for Copyright Management, Producers and Publishers (GEDIPE), who argued that their members are financially hurt by TPB’s services.

In its verdict the court ruled that Vodafone, MEO and NOS have to prevent users from visiting the torrent site within 30 days. If they fail to do so the ISPs face a fine of 2,500 euros per day.

The injunction marks the first time that Internet providers in Portugal are required to block a website on copyright grounds. Previously there were cases against unknown website owners, but not ISPs.

“In the case of Pirate Bay, the judge decided to blame the Internet provider, which now face a financial penalty,” GEDIPE boss Paulo Santos comments.

Pirate Bay is currently among the 100 most visited sites in Portugal. Whether the blockade will stop people from pirating has yet to be seen. Several other TPB proxies remain available, and so are dozens of other torrent sites.

GEDIPE is urging the Internet providers to discuss voluntary actions to target other pirate sites. If they refuse to do so, the group will go back to court to demand more injunctions.

“Internet providers are not our enemies. If they combat pirate sites they will also be defending their own content distribution businesses. It is time to sit down and negotiate blocking measures that don’t require the courts to get involved,” Santos says.

“If Internet providers don’t want to go down down this road we have to move forward with injunctions targeting dozens of sites that promote sharing of pirated content,” he adds.

The ISPs have previously spoken out against blocking measures, arguing that they will block legitimate content as well. They still have the option to appeal the injunction but thus far it’s unclear if they will.

The full listed of blocked domains is listed below.

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thepiratebay.org; www.thepiratebay.org ; thepiratebay.com; thepiratebay.net; thepiratebay.se, piratebay.org; piratebay.net; www.thepiratebay.com ; www.thepiratebay.net ; www.thepiratebay.se; ikwilthepiratebay.org; www.piratebay.org ; www.piratebay.net ; tpb.partipirate.org; pirateproxy.net; tpb.me; kuiken.co; dieroschtibay.org; bayproxy.org; tpb.cryptocloud.ca; proxie.co.uk; come.in; proxybay.net; tpb.ninja.so; proxy.rickmartensen.nl; malaysiabay.org; lanunbay.org: tpb.dbpotato.net; pirateproxy.se; pirateshore.org.

Update March 11: The blocks have already started.

Update: Users are now informed that the site is blocked by court order.