VirginMedia's Rapidshare blockage cock-up, not copyright

A ripple of panic ran round the internet yesterday as customers of VirginMedia suddenly discovered they were unable to access Rapidshare or Megaupload. Surely, ran the logic, the ISP is blocking these services because some users don't pay proper attention to licensing when they use them.

Calm down, says Virgin, it's just a bungle at our end:

"We are aware of an issue whereby certain file upload sites were unavailable for Virgin Media customers from late evening Thursday 13th May. Virgin Media did not block these sites and we are investigating the root cause. In the meantime we have implemented a workaround, and customers should be able to now access these sites again. We apologise for any inconvenience."

ISP Review offers a handy guide to getting round such 'problems' should they happen again.