French courts tell search engines to block rights-infringing sites

France’s High Court of Paris has instructed Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and search engines to remove, delist and block infringing movies sites, concluding a case opened in 2011.

The move follows complaints from a number of film and TV trade organisations in France, including L’Association des Producteurs de Cinéma and La Fédération Nationale des Distributeurs de Films.

ISPs in the UK have blocked rights-infringing sites, while the French ruling takes a further step by instructing search engines to actively disavow their URLs.