Premier League blocking fail

I almost missed this story about the mistaken blocking of a whole load of websites, including that of the Radio Times (which I must admit I didn’t know still existed…) as a result of the Premier League’s attempt to stop British internet users accessing a Swedish website called First Row Sports that offers video streams of footie. The country’s six largest ISPs were asked to block First Row Sports through IP blocking, and in the process they denied access to hundreds of other sites.

Notwithstanding the hilarious umbrage taken by the RT’s editor, who is quoted in the FT as saying that “it’s outrageous that our website has been suddenly switched off and our users wrongly informed that it’s to protect against copyright infringement. The Premier League seems to be behaving like the worst sort of blundering striker who’s forgotten the first rule of football – check you’re at the right end before you shoot”, the case does demonstrate rather clearly how IP blocking solutions are absurdly ineffective. This one ran into problems before the site that they were attempting to block even started to try to get round the block!