James Delahunty
9 May 2012 0:16
ISP forced to take website offline.
Twitter announcements suggested that Anonymous was responsible for taking the site offline, although Virgin Media says it took it down itself for about an hour during a distributed denial of service attack.
The ISP recently began blocking access to the Pirate Bay in compliance with a High Court order. Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk and O2 have also been ordered to block access to the BitTorrent website by Friday, while BT has requested a few more weeks to consider its options.
"As a responsible ISP, Virgin Media complies with court orders but we strongly believe that tackling the issue of copyright infringement needs compelling legal alternatives, giving consumers access to great content at the right price, to help change consumer behaviour," Virgin Media said in a statement.
The High Court order in the UK is just another attempt to block access to one of the world's most notorious web services, which has survived raids and even legal proceedings against its founders in Sweden.