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

[HarryT]

File-sharing site The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK internet service providers, the High Court has ruled.

The Swedish website hosts links to download mostly-pirated free music and video.

Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media must all prevent their users from accessing the site.
...

Full story at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17894176

[mr ploppy]

Waste of time, money and effort that would have been better spent setting up legal alternatives.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/24127..._blocking.html

[HarryT]

I don't think blockages of this type are really aimed at what one might call "serious" pirates; they will always have the tools and the know-how to circumvent such blocks. They are, however, effective against the casual or inadvertent pirate, who simply comes across the link to TPB in the results from a Google search.

[danskmacabre]

They're fighting a losing battle. Won't make any difference at all.
Anyone who accesses TPB will use other sites or a workaround to access TPB anyway (directly or indirectly).

[Jazzy_Jeffaz]

All the governments are doing is making it more fun for the pirates. Showing how inept they are...

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I don't think blockages of this type are really aimed at what one might call "serious" pirates; they will always have the tools and the know-how to circumvent such blocks. They are, however, effective against the casual or inadvertent pirate, who simply comes across the link to TPB in the results from a Google search.

But then they would just see the links to other similar sites instead. Even if they spent even more time and money having all the existing ones blocked there would be new ones popping up all the time.

And as usual, they seem to be completely ignoring the impact it will have on people who use them to distribute their own or other types of legal content.

[stonetools]

Its aimed at TPB's business model:

Large copyright holders are warning that a new proposal called the OPEN Act is ineffective because it would do nothing to thwart what they view as the Internet's most notorious Web site: ThePirateBay.org.

The owners of the popular BitTorrent search site make money by running advertisements along links to not-exactly-legal versions of movies including "Transformers 3" and "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn."

LINK

The idea is that people won't advertise on the site if the average user can't get easy access to the site. Dunno if it will work.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by mr ploppy

And as usual, they seem to be completely ignoring the impact it will have on people who use them to distribute their own or other types of legal content.

Do you really believe that there is a significant amount of legal content tracked via TPB? When the criminals who operate the site were on trial in Sweden, their lawyer tried that argument. When asked to provide a sample of legal material that was tracked by the site, he was unable to find a single example .

Can you give us a link to an example of legal content on TPB?

[Giggleton]

What a bunch of crazy loonies!

"That site has bad knowledge, you can't have any"

I suppose removing access is easier than creating an equitable system where all can access, but think of the children!

[afv011]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you really believe that there is a significant amount of legal content tracked via TPB? When the criminals who operate the site were on trial in Sweden, their lawyer tried that argument. When asked to provide a sample of legal material that was tracked by the site, he was unable to find a single example .

Can you give us a link to an example of legal content on TPB?

Linux distributions are usually available via torrent, which on the release day are much faster that the direct download from their homepage.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by afv011

Linux distributions are usually available via torrent, which on the release day are much faster that the direct download from their homepage.

I wouldn't trust a Linux release from TPB. Too much room for someone to be putting up a malware-laden spoof. Its IMO safer and better to use the distribution's own release channels.

Ubuntu has its own trackers and links, and most of the other big-name distros probably do as well.

[JoeD]

Originally Posted by afv011

Linux distributions are usually available via torrent, which on the release day are much faster that the direct download from their homepage.

Torrents aren't being blocked, just a site that indexes them. You'll still be able to go to your favourite distribution site and download the .torrent file for the linux version you want and download fine.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by afv011

Linux distributions are usually available via torrent, which on the release day are much faster that the direct download from their homepage.

Absolutely - BitTorrent technology is extremely useful. It's the use that the owners of this particular site have put it to that's illegal, not the underlying technology.

[mr ploppy]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you really believe that there is a significant amount of legal content tracked via TPB? When the criminals who operate the site were on trial in Sweden, their lawyer tried that argument. When asked to provide a sample of legal material that was tracked by the site, he was unable to find a single example .

Can you give us a link to an example of legal content on TPB?

No, because site rules forbid linking to pirate sites. But there is plenty on there despite what you might think. It's a lot more common with music than books though.

http://idigid.wordpress.com/2012/04/...the-promo-bay/

http://torrentfreak.com/alchemist-au...-books-080124/

[orlok]

Interesting to see that BT "requested 'a few more weeks' to consider their position on blocking the site." I wonder what their thinking is behind that request?