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

[HarryT]

But it's not only "large corporations" who are hurt by pirate sites. I'm a software developer, and I routinely see my software listed on torrent sites. Piracy harms everyone who tries to earn a living writing, whether it be books, software, music, or anything else.

To claim that anyone has a "right" to access pirate sites is ridiculous, and a kick in the teeth to content authors.

[Soldim]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But it's not only "large corporations" who are hurt by pirate sites. I'm a software developer, and I routinely see my software listed on torrent sites. Piracy harms everyone who tries to earn a living writing, whether it be books, software, music, or anything else.

I sympathize and understand the frustration of the content creators with pirates and sites facilitating pirates, and fully understand that they defend their interests. However, as soon as the defense they raise interferes with my freedom I reserve the right to protest very focally.

To claim that anyone has a "right" to access pirate sites is ridiculous, and a kick in the teeth to content authors.

Personally, I consider it a kick in the teeth to my freedom when large corporations can decides which sites I can visit or not. Large corporations have shown again and again that profit is their prime interest, and they don't shy away from buying lawmakers to implement laws to further that interest. I am more than happy to abide the law to respect the rights of individual content creators, I feel much less inclined to follow laws that have been put in place by bought or coerced lawmakers to suit the interests of large corporations.

[MikeB1972]

If you replace "ebooks" with "cocaine" and TPB with Colombia (Sorry for picking on Colombians, too much Miami Vice as a child ) then surely no one is saying that we can't stop illegal goods from coming into the country without taking the original supplier to court?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Soldim

Personally, I consider it a kick in the teeth to my freedom when large corporations can decides which sites I can visit or not.

You think that you have a "right" to be able to access sites which exist for purely criminal purposes? I'm sorry, but I strongly disagree with you about that.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You think that you have a "right" to be able to access sites which exist for purely criminal purposes? I'm sorry, but I strongly disagree with you about that.

All the new anti-terrorist stuff that was brought in were soon "adapted" for other use (like catching people dropping litter out of cars). Blocking websites like this will be no different.

You only need to look at Google's transparency report to see how much stuff the UK government want to get rid of on the internet.

"We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove 14 search results for linking to sites that criticise the police ...
The number of content removal requests we received increased by 98% compared to the previous reporting period."

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

All the new anti-terrorist stuff that was brought in were soon "adapted" for other use (like catching people dropping litter out of cars). Blocking websites like this will be no different.

You only need to look at Google's transparency report to see how much stuff the UK government want to get rid of on the internet.

"We received a request from a local law enforcement agency to remove 14 search results for linking to sites that criticise the police ...
The number of content removal requests we received increased by 98% compared to the previous reporting period."

What alternative would you suggest, given that the site itself lies outside the jurisdiction of the court? This has to be better than going after individual downloaders.

[CallOfCth'reader]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

All the new anti-terrorist stuff that was brought in were soon "adapted" for other use (like catching people dropping litter out of cars). Blocking websites like this will be no different.

You only need to look at Google's transparency report to see how much stuff the UK government want to get rid of on the internet.

Governments are always going try to remove more freedoms than they grant (in the UK and US for sure).

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What alternative would you suggest, given that the site itself lies outside the jurisdiction of the court? This has to be better than going after individual downloaders.

Doing nothing maybe? Why do you need an alternative.

Is it also OK to block site that publish things that are not allowed to be published in UK? According to your reasoning that seems to be the case and blocking should have been used when sites outside UK published the unallowed images of some royalty.

[CallOfCth'reader]

Originally Posted by tompe

Doing nothing maybe? Why do you need an alternative.

Is it also OK to block site that publish things that are not allowed to be published in UK? According to your reasoning that seems to be the case and blocking should have been used when sites outside UK published the unallowed images of some royalty.

A couple of things:
- no court had been asked to rule that the photo's of the royals were illegal to print.
- the Pirate Bay was blocked because of an action brought by an organisation that represented copyright holders, it was not blocked because someone in authority had a random musing to block it.

An ISP either has to voluntarily choose to block a website (for whatever reason), or it has to be 'asked' by a judge after a court ruling.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by CallOfCth'reader

An ISP either has to voluntarily choose to block a website (for whatever reason), or it has to be 'asked' by a judge after a court ruling.

At the european net neutrality rules mean that an ISP can't simply choose to do so, without losing their carrier immunity, they have to be compelled to do so.

[CallOfCth'reader]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

At the european net neutrality rules mean that an ISP can't simply choose to do so, without losing their carrier immunity, they have to be compelled to do so.

A number of UK ISPs voluntarily block websites put forward by the Internet Watch Foundation, which (as far as I am aware) they are not legally compelled to do.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

But it's not only "large corporations" who are hurt by pirate sites. I'm a software developer, and I routinely see my software listed on torrent sites. Piracy harms everyone who tries to earn a living writing, whether it be books, software, music, or anything else.

To claim that anyone has a "right" to access pirate sites is ridiculous, and a kick in the teeth to content authors.

How many sales would you say you've lost because your software is listed on the Pirate Bay?

And it's not the same thing (obviously), but you mentioned Game of Thrones earlier. It may interest you to know that the director of that show had said at one time that piracy was helping the show by getting it in the hands of people who wouldn't have paid for it anyway, and those people were promoting it to others that would buy.

I bring up the above example only because you (in my most humble of opinions), seem to be concerned about the harm the Pirate Bay causes and think that blocking it is necessary to prevent that harm. I would suggest that the Pirate Bay is less harmful than you think, and that infringing freedoms by blocking the website with very little oversight is more harmful.

In any event, I think a site should only be blocked if: (i) it is established that it is harmful (based on objective evidence); (ii) it is established that that harm is such that only blocking the site can mitigate the harm; (iii) the harm caused by the blocking does not outweigh the harm caused by the site; and (iv) the owners of the site are provided with an opportunity (where applicable) for an adversarial hearing.

I don't think the above is unreasonable, and should be an easy win if the Pirate Bay is as harmful as you say.



Please take the above in the friendliest way possible, which I add only to avoid this post being seen as trolling by our team of (very attractive) MODs.

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What alternative would you suggest, given that the site itself lies outside the jurisdiction of the court? This has to be better than going after individual downloaders.

No, it doesn't. If the individual downloaders are too hard to go after, perhaps the legal structure needs to change. If a crime (or tort) becomes so popular that it's unenforceable, the public may not believe that crime should be illegal.

There have never been enough police or court time to prosecute every fistfight as "assault." Most people don't think every fistfight needs to be prosecuted. Likewise, there are not enough court resources to track and prosecute every unauthorized download as "copyright infringement." And that, apparently, is also fine with most of the public.

It's not fine with a great many large corporations who make their living controlling access to copyrighted materials. However, they're not able to articulate how much damage it causes them--and they're *definitely* not able to articulate how much damage any specific case causes them.

A restaurant next to a bar can say, "when a fight breaks out in that place, I usually lose four tables' worth of customers for the rest of the evening, which costs me (X)." They can reasonably ask for prosecutions of the fights that nobody at the bar minds.

When a college student downloads an album and shares it with four friends... how much money has RCA lost? When someone downloads Game of Thrones Season 1 to bring on their vacation, how much money has been lost? If they'd bought it, that's $35-$45. But if they weren't willing to pay that much and were going to watch something free, what's been lost by their choice being GoT instead of a legitimate freebie?

I'm not saying "it's okay to download because otherwise they'd just grab something else so it's all the same." It's not. But quantifying what's been lost is hard--and the media companies have consistently refused to move forward with research that might approximate those values.

Given the lack of public outrage over this, I can't see a claim that the courts "must" demand that ISPs block the IP addresses. Are the courts really claiming that the majority of internet users are potential criminals?

I suppose not; they're saying that "these sites are only used by criminals, and maybe a few law-abiding citizens whose rights aren't important when the criminal activity is considered." I have no way to judge if that assessment is accurate in the UK.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What alternative would you suggest, given that the site itself lies outside the jurisdiction of the court? This has to be better than going after individual downloaders.

If piracy was something that bothered me I would go for the first uploader. I wouldn't demand something that affected innocent users of the site they chose to upload it to or crippled people using the site for promotional purposes.

But I don't have a problem with people or corporations going after unauthorised downloaders, subject to these provisos:

1. The burden of proof is on the accuser.

2. The standard of proof required is no different to that required for any other type of crime.

3. The punishment is proportionate to the crime. (I know it's not the same, but I would look at shoplifting as a guideline).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

If piracy was something that bothered me I would go for the first uploader.

In the case of these three sites there were, I think, over 400,000 copyright infringing torrents. Don't you think it would be rather impractical to go after each one individually? Not to mention that the majority of the initial uploaders are probably outside the jurisdiction of the court. Site blocking really seems to me to be the only practical method of trying to tackle this problem. It's far from perfect, but I can't think of any better alternative.