High Court orders British ISPs to block "The Pirate Bay"

[nogle]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If you're trying to suggest that owning an organic chemistry textbook is akin to operating a website which encourages and aids people to infringe copyright, you're backing a no-hoper, my friend .

No, these are pharmaceutics and medicinal chemistry texts with specific, step by step instructions for the extraction, purification, and manufacture of drugs. Things like the extraction of morphine and synthesis to heroin and instructions for the manufacture of ecstasy.

If the distribution of the whereabouts of a pirate copy is illegal, then instructions on how to manufacture illegal drugs is surely illegal too.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Keroberos

No, it exists to allow its users to link to files they want to share, something which has apparently been deemed legal in their country of operation. If their users are linking infringing files is it TPB's responsibility or is it the users? As I linked to earlier, Viacom is still convinced that YouTube is dedicated to infringement, I would hate to see how that case would have gone if YouTube was not allowed to state their case, and Dajaz1.com's domain was seized and held for over a year with no court hearing at all at the behest of the RIAA. This is why cases like these need to be decided in a true adversarial court hearing where both sides get to have their say.

Youtube shares advertising revenue with the copyrights holders if they leave the video up, or youtube will take the video down if so requested. TPB does neither.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by nogle

Imagine that I stand on a corner and let people know from whom they could buy illegal drugs. I don;t sell the drugs myself, I simply tell people where they could if they so desired. Have I committed a crime? What if I put the information on a website?

That's usually called Conspiracy when someone wants to prosecute... and strangely, it usually attracts greater sentences than just the crime...

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by carpetmojo

I'm not a hundred per cent certain about this....... but aren't we getting just the teensiest bit silly here ?

Hmmm... think you may be underestimating with the "teensiest" unit measurement...

[SteveEisenberg]

There are a number of internet reports stating that the government of India has taken similar action against Pirate Bay. This is the most detailed information I could find:

Reliance Communications Blocks The Pirate Bay & Vimeo

[Keroberos]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

TPB have the ability to remove infringing files, but refuse to do so.

Originally Posted by HansTWN

TPB does neither.

And under no law that I am aware of are they required to. In many counties it has been judged perfectly legal to link to files. Also many more logically don't hold site operators responsible for the actions of their users.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Keroberos

And under no law that I am aware of are they required to. In many counties it has been judged perfectly legal to link to files. Also many more logically don't hold site operators responsible for the actions of their users.

Well, looks like things are changing! A voluntary agreement with the rights holders may just be the thing to save pirate bay.

[Jazzy_Jeffaz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I think most of us would accept that it falls into the "pretty blooming obvious" category that TPB is, first and foremost, a pirate site.

Hint: the clue's in the name...

So that would make Microsoft Windows a glass company? Or Apple a fruit stand?

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by nogle

Imagine that I stand on a corner and let people know from whom they could buy illegal drugs. I don;t sell the drugs myself, I simply tell people where they could if they so desired. Have I committed a crime? What if I put the information on a website?

What if you invited drug dealers to tell you what drugs they sold and where they were located, and you stood on a street corner and passed this information on to people who asked. This is closer to what TPB does, and it's certainly not legal in the drug context. Even if you put the information on a website.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

What if you invited drug dealers to tell you what drugs they sold and where they were located, and you stood on a street corner and passed this information on to people who asked. This is closer to what TPB does, and it's certainly not legal in the drug context. Even if you put the information on a website.

And you are forgetting that TPB is profiting from providing that information. So to make this analogy more accurate you would have to add that you are standing at a street corner, showing off some advertising banners and signs and blasting away commercial messages by loudspeaker directed at those that go to buy the drugs after you told them where to get them.

[MikeOxlittle]

So users will just go to the hundreds, if not thousands, of other Torrent sites and get what they are looking for instead.

Surely the High Court has more pressing matters to deal with than this?

[HarryT]

Have you read the Judge's conclusion, Mike?

Conclusion. In my judgment, the operators of TPB do authorise its users' infringing acts of copying and communication to the public. They go far beyond merely enabling or assisting. On any view, they "sanction, approve and countenance" the infringements of copyright committed by its users. But in my view they also purport to grant users the right to do the acts complained of. It is no defence that they openly defy the rights of the copyright owners. I would add that I consider the present case to be indistinguishable from 20C Fox v Newzbin in this respect. If anything, it is a stronger case.

This seems like a pretty damning judgement, and one which fully merits action. The fact that there are other criminals committing similar crimes does not mean that action should not be taken against these particular ones, surely?

[MikeOxlittle]

Piracy is here to stay, plain and simple.

Censor one site and ten will sprout up in its place.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by MikeOxlittle

Piracy is here to stay, plain and simple.

Censor one site and ten will sprout up in its place.

Yes, but advertisers will stay away, and the sites are being pushed into the darker corners of the internet. And you go after the big ones, one by one. It will be come less easy to make money off other people's works and site operators will lose interest. Many casual would-be pirates won't find the new sites.

You can't eradicate hard core piracy, but you can go after the money. Which is what TPB people and similar sites are really after. Piracy will not go away but it will be small time business. Relegated to obscurity, where it belongs.

You deal with piracy the way you deal with petty theft. You make it more difficult, more dangerous, less profitable. This way you greatly reduce it, you will never make it totally go away, of course. This approach should go hand in hand with making legal buying easier, though.

[howyoudoin]

Should wikipedia be penalised for linking to pirate sites?