Pirate Bay 'banned' in UK

[mpw]

.

 

[Intruder]

BBC NEWS - The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs, court rules

Most leading UK ISPs ordered to block users access to pirate bay by High Court.

Some of the bleating by opponents of this order is hilarious, to paraphrase;

"Stopping stealing is just the beginning, next they'll try and stop paedophilia and murder!"

Who cares.. whoever uses that needs their bumps feeling.. Trojan and virus central... Much better way to get "warez"

Int

 

[lunatic59]

Much better way to get "warez"

Int

Totally agree. It's called "paying for it."

 

[9to5cynic]

It's a bummer. How long until governments can force isps to block traffic to other sites? Sure TPB is used for illegal files, but also for legal files. I downloaded libre office at a relatives house through torrent and it was at least 20 times as fast as http...

:/

 

[Covart]

There are a few other countries that do this same sort of thing. North Korea, China, Syria... I never would have counted the UK as a member of banning a medium like the internet.

Now that this has passed, where do you draw a line between acceptable and not acceptable? Will xxx websites be next? I don't like this one bit and believe it will only lead to more censorship. Which is bad!

 

[SUroot]

There are a few other countries that do this same sort of thing. North Korea, China, Syria... I never would have counted the UK as a member of banning a medium like the internet.

Now that this has passed, where do you draw a line between acceptable and not acceptable? Will xxx websites be next? I don't like this one bit and believe it will only lead to more censorship. Which is bad!

The UK is a joke. Trying to pass a bill so they can store all our internet history and email communications passing through UK servers.

To be honest, I suspect GCHQ have been doing this for years anyway and the bill is a formality to appear transparent about it so it can be used as a scare tactic to wannabe terrorists

 

[mpw]

.

 

[argedion]

I use torrents a lot. Love the fact I can download a tons of wallpapers. Linux distros and lots and lots of that stuff no body owns or watches.

 

[lunatic59]

Just a friendly reminder, this thread is about Pirate Bay being blocked in the UK. Discussing the larger picture is fine, but it would be better to do that in a new thread in Politics and Current Affairs - Android Forums.

 

[EarlyMon]

Just a friendly reminder, this thread is about Pirate Bay being blocked in the UK. Discussing the larger picture is fine, but it would be better to do that in a new thread in Politics and Current Affairs - Android Forums.

The more I thought about it, the more I saw this as political in and of itself, so I moved this to the PCA.

If that griefs anyone, drop me a line.

 

[A.Nonymous]

I'm no fan of piracy, but censorship just isn't the answer. This is just going to increase the push for a darknet.

I agree with this unfortunately. It's also just a whack a mole solution ultimately. TPB will rename itself or change IPs and come back. Or they'll be an alternate DNS service that will pop up. I'm not sure what method the ISPS are using to block them. Other sites are still out there that do the same thing.

At the end of the day sites like TPB exist because there is a demand for them. If you want to get rid of them, figure out why consumers would rather pirate a movie from TPB instead of paying for a Blu-ray copy. If companies would make their content freely available at reasonable prices, they would cut down on this problem a lot. But so many of them don't and I have no clue why. Not endorsing piracy, but I can see where the pirates are coming from.

I use torrents a lot. Love the fact I can download a tons of wallpapers. Linux distros and lots and lots of that stuff no body owns or watches.

There's an app I'm fond of and the developer distributes it via torrents because it saves bandwidth on his server. It's a free app. What does he care if it's on a torrent network. It killed me the other day when I was trying to download Star Wars the Old Republic. It took at least 6-8 hours and probably more (I went to bed) to download it. A torrent would've taken only 2-3 hours at most and wouldn't have hurt their bandwidth at all. Plus, it's a subscription based game. I can't play it without subscribing anyway so who cares where I get the client download from? Maddening.

 

[copestag]

well we see actions like this clearly work........ after all look how hard it is to download an MP3 of your favorite song for free

 

[mpw]

.

 

[Slug]

A couple of points of clarification:

1. These are only six, albeit large, ISPs out of many in the UK.
2. High Court judgements are made to establish legality i.e. is <whatever> contrary to UK law? The full judgement is here, for anyone brave enough to wade through heavyweight legalese.

 

[EarlyMon]

Again, laws struggle with technology.

TPB is a collection of magnet links to over 1.6 million torrents.

TPB is beyond stoppable by tech. Little wonder frustration abounds.

 

[mikedt]

There are a few other countries that do this same sort of thing. North Korea, China, Syria... I never would have counted the UK as a member of banning a medium like the internet.

Here we go, The Great FireWall of United Kingdom. Starts off with PirateBay, then the UK Govt can go ahead and block/censor anything else it deems illegal, undesirable and harmful to the UK.

Now that this has passed, where do you draw a line between acceptable and not acceptable? Will xxx websites be next? I don't like this one bit and believe it will only lead to more censorship. Which is bad!

+1

Just like here in the PRC, people who want to bypass the censoring will use a VPN, proxy, TOR, etc.

 

[mpw]

.

 

[mikedt]

Isn't that Government's job?

Yeh, totalitarian regimes, like North Korea, China and Syria. Now I always thought the UK's democratically elected government wasn't like that, guess I was wrong.

Much like a 14*year old wanting booze illegally might use theft, coercion or bribery to obtain it?


*UK

IANAL but those are criminal acts anyway. Using a VPN, proxy or TOR are not a crime in their own right, However if one is using them for illegal activities, e.g. infringing copyright, that's another matter. I use a VPN to watch YouTube, which is censored in China, AFAIK watching YouTube is not a crime.

BTW ThePirateBay is blocked in China, not because of copyright infringement AFAIK, but because it has materials considered critical and harmful to the Communist Party of China and the PRC, e.g. materials about human rights abuses, Tiananmen massacre, Falun Gong, etc.

 

[mpw]

.

 

[SUroot]

'Suspect' based on any evidence, or just a gut feeling based on nothing? a guess?

Gut feeling. The home office do all sorts of things that aren't strictly legal.

We all know in the UK that there are triggers for certain buzzwords in phone calls and e-mails (thats in the public domain) so they're monitored. What (other than the law) is teh incentive to relinquish or not store this data?!

 

[Xyro]

Not only is the block easily circumvented, but they've now said that the announcement of the ban led to a boost of 12 million visitors yesterday.

 

[9to5cynic]

Not only is the block easily circumvented, but they've now said that the announcement of the ban led to a boost of 12 million visitors yesterday.

I'm sure those extra 12 million were only there to thumb their noses at authority...

 

[mikedt]

Are you saying that a 'democratically elected government' shouldn't be working to prevent illegal, undesirable and or harmful actions by to or of the citizens within its society?

I'm thinking the UK Government censoring the internet, like they do in China, sets a dangerous precedent. OK censoring illegal copyright infringing content, but who's to say what they're going to start censoring next, undesirable political organisations, illegal sites that are critical of the UK Government?....London starts copying Beijing and Pyongyang. Washington DC is heading that way isn't it?

They can try and deter it, which is what they do here in China. but if someone really wants to look at and download illegal content they're just going to do it anyway. Using a VPN or proxy is very easy.

I'm in China, yet I'm able to look at and download anything I like, both legal and illegal, straight through the Great FireWall censoring/blocking and the Communist PRC Government can't really do anything about it.

Fair point regarding the analogy, but the fact remains people who resort to accessing the site, albeit by legal means, to carry on obtaining illegally copied material are just criminals; because it's hard to stop them doesn't mean action shouldn't be being taken.

I guess they have to be seen to be doing something, keeps Hollywood, IFPI, PRS, MCPS, MPAA, RIAA, etc. happy.

 

[alpha0990]

It is everyman's right to have free downloads; it is quite simply, pure capitalism. Big brother is taking action to protect big business and, therefore, tax revenue.

 

[mpw]

.