BBC News - Arts groups tell BT to block access to The Pirate Bay

He`s obviously never walked down"Oxford Street" on a Saturday afternoon.

It would be nice if they [BT] did the right thing... but...
I have a feeling that the courts will need to weigh in first.

We need to keep the ball rolling. I'm glad they [BPI] aren't resting on this issue

BT are doing the right thing, now that the legal process for doing so has been worked out in court. The process requires a court order. This protects BT from legal action by the entity being cut off. (Although ISPs have clauses in their terms and conditions allowing them to cut off access, these don't protect them from legal action.)

I agree that it will take a court order.
But... do they really need one? I mean TPB has lost several court cases- by law they don't have the right to do buisness... is there such a thing as "aiding and abetting" in the online world? These are real-world buisnesses after all.

BT and other ISPs aren't generally against copyright enforcement, but they defend their "net neutrality" fiercely. BT has spent a lot of money to get a workable enforcement procedure thrashed out in court. Do you not think that judicial oversight is necessary? Is it not necessary for the infringer to be found guilty in law?

Brit ISPs shift toward rapid pirate website blocking • The Register

I take your point about the legal precedence, but the more commentary you read on the UK situation, the more clear it is that telcos and isp's have been dragged kicking and screaming to this. In fact, going on what's been written in the various articles, it's more that they've seen the writing on the wall, and voluntarily adopting a more anti-piracy approach is cheaper than fighting cases in court, and better than being regulated by new laws.

Of course they're resisting. What led you to think they're doing this voluntarily?
"Leading UK ISPs are now privately agreed on the principle of restricting access to websites in response to hastily obtained court orders ...
... However, the structure and processes acceptable to both ISPs and creative industries have yet to be tabled, and significant concerns remain in the Internet industry over legal issues and costs."

The rest of the article goes on in similar vein. Note that the Government have laws to enforce the website blocking, but aren't going to implement them in the hope that the ISPs and the rights holders can come to an agreement on enforcement that is acceptable to both. In other words, they are trying to push the costs of enforcement onto the ISPs and rights holders. Don't expect either party to be happy about that.

As a rights holder, I'm already paying for it through the labor of hiring people to make DMCA claims. Content management may be the price the content industries have to pay to protect their products... but guess what, if the legislation and methods are actually effective, than those cost can be passed on to consumers in the same way manufacturing and shipping costs were previously.

Sometimes the cost of business just moves from one area to another.