UK Courts move towards blocking access to The Pirate Bay

[murraypaul]

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2012/268.html

This case determines that the operators of the TPB, and not just the users, are guilty of infringing on the copyrights of the claimant music firms.
This is a preliminary step to obtaining the same orders against UK ISPs as have already been obtained in respect of NewzBin, requiring them to block all access from their customers (essentially all UK users) to TPB.

[mr ploppy]

I'm probably being really naive here, but I was surprised to see Rough Trade were one of the instigators of this.

[John Barlow]

A simple question: would companies have to go through the same procedure for any new download/pirate site? As I understand it, that's the way it's gonna be in Spain (where I live).

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by John Barlow

A simple question: would companies have to go through the same procedure for any new download/pirate site? As I understand it, that's the way it's gonna be in Spain (where I live).

I would have thought so, but with a precedent set it will probably get easier from now on. But wait until the scientist-ologists find out how easy it is to get stuff deleted from the internet. Or the creator-ists, or any other number of nutjobs.

[Ravensknight]

great.
The heyday of the internet seems to be winding down.
Maybe I can tell my grandkids about the days when the internet was wide open for everybody!
[I think I am beginning to understand how the cowboys felt when the big ranchers moved in and fenced everything in. sigh]

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2012/268.html

This case determines that the operators of the TPB, and not just the users, are guilty of infringing on the copyrights of the claimant music firms.
This is a preliminary step to obtaining the same orders against UK ISPs as have already been obtained in respect of NewzBin, requiring them to block all access from their customers (essentially all UK users) to TPB.

Seasoned users of the bay will simply use a VPN service.

This sort of flailing type response really does not work.

[jmaejr]

Why would anyone on this website want to go to TPB anyway...

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by Ravensknight

great.
The heyday of the internet seems to be winding down.
Maybe I can tell my grandkids about the days when the internet was wide open for everybody!
[I think I am beginning to understand how the cowboys felt when the big ranchers moved in and fenced everything in. sigh]

It's a garbage lawsuit, brought about because garbage companies want to keep as much of their garbage money as they can...

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by sabredog

Seasoned users of the bay will simply use a VPN service.

This sort of flailing type response really does not work.

Yes and no. Nothing stops seasoned pirates, but it could prevent a lot of more casual users from going there.

A VPN service is always an option, but when you download a few GB via a free VPN service you can prepared to wait a few days until it finishes. And fast, good VPN services cost money.

[sabredog]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Yes and no. Nothing stops seasoned pirates, but it could prevent a lot of more casual users from going there.

A VPN service is always an option, but when you download a few GB via a free VPN service you can prepared to wait a few days until it finishes. And fast, good VPN services cost money.

True

But it is not hard to set up these days either. VPN client installs are very user friendly these days and 5Gb of quota is not that expensive.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by sabredog

True

But it is not hard to set up these days either. VPN client installs are very user friendly these days and 5Gb of quota is not that expensive.

It is yet another barrier though, and the more difficult something is to do, the more likely people decide not to bother.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Yes and no. Nothing stops seasoned pirates, but it could prevent a lot of more casual users from going there.

That's true, but it's more likely to be to dramatically reduce TPB's advertising income. With whole countries cut off, their hit rate will plummet, so they won't be as attractive to advertisers. Casual users will just gravitate to one of the other torrent sites that Google directs them to instead

Originally Posted by HansTWN

A VPN service is always an option, but when you download a few GB via a free VPN service you can prepared to wait a few days until it finishes. And fast, good VPN services cost money.

They would be more likely to just use the VPN for the torrent file (a few kb) and then download normally when they have it.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

They would be more likely to just use the VPN for the torrent file (a few kb) and then download normally when they have it.

Blocking TPB would have two effects:
a) You couldn't access the website to download a torrent file.
b) You couldn't contact the tracker to find peers to download any files.
Of course if there are multiple trackers defined for the torrent then b will have less impact.

[carpetmojo]

Well, now I know what a VPN is - sounds quite a handy thing to have, actually. Would you then be able to buy things from, say, US from UK ?

And, I now know what PTB stands for - twit

Anyway, when I found myself there, I noticed

"we used to have a nice graph here, but it's simpler to just say: 0 torrents has been removed, and 0 torrents will ever be removed.)"

Which I thought might be pushing their luck a bit - and perhaps creating a bit of a "dare you" situation ?

[Belfaborac]

Originally Posted by carpetmojo

Anyway, when I found myself there, I noticed

"we used to have a nice graph here, but it's simpler to just say: 0 torrents has been removed, and 0 torrents will ever be removed.)"

Which I thought might be pushing their luck a bit - and perhaps creating a bit of a "dare you" situation ?

It would be a bit late to cease daring their opponents to do their worst at this point, considering they've had a policy of publicising and ridiculing the legal writs they've received since pretty much day one.