Argentina has become the first country in Latin America to block The Pirate Bay on copyright grounds. A court order obtained by the country's leading recording labels compels eleven ISPs to block 256 Pirate Bay IP addresses and 12 domains. According to early reports from the region, some ISPs have already implemented the ban.

It’s very common to hear of a country in Europe opting to block The Pirate Bay. Court orders across the region compel dozens of ISPs to block the infamous torrent site following action by the world’s largest recording labels and movie studios.

On the heels of those multiple actions spanning several years comes news today that Argentina has become the first Latin American country to block The Pirate Bay on copyright grounds.

The action against the site was initiated by Cámara Argentina de Productores de Fonogramas (CAPIF), an Argentinian music industry group. A local member of the IFPI, CAPIF represents both leading and independent labels. In its application to the court the group said it wanted to do something about the rampant copyright infringement being enabled by The Pirate Bay.

The 67th District Federal Court looked favorably upon the labels’ plight and last month issued an order to have local ISPs block The Pirate Bay. Details of the case and court order, obtained by Acceso-Directo, only leaked out a few hours ago. Here are the key points.

In a directive stamped May 28 and June 26, the National Communications Commission, an organization that regulates and supervises telecommunications and the post office in Argentina, ordered ISPs to take action against a range of domain names and IP addresses associated with the site.

As can be seen from the image below, the ISPs – Arnet, Speedy, Fibertel, Claro, Personal, Movistar, Prima, Telecentro, Iplan, Metrotel and Sion – are now required to block 12 Pirate Bay domains and a total of 256 IP address.

According to local sources, the ISPs Arnet, Fibertel, Telecentro, Iplan and Metrotel are already blocking the site.

An interesting side-effect of the Argentinian blockade was reported to TorrentFreak by a reader in Paraguay. Internet services in the landlocked country are supplied jointly by Argentina and Brazil. This means that anytime now much of Paraguay will also be blocked from accessing The Pirate Bay, even though no court order was issued in that country.

The blocking injunction in Argentina is preliminary, so will take effect pending the outcome of a full trial.

Update: Hackers started a Pirate Bay proxy on a CAPIF’s subdomain.