back to article BT missing from Pirate Bay High Court slap-down

BT has been granted more time to respond to an order to block The Pirate Bay that was handed down by the UK's High Court in London late on Friday afternoon. The Register understands that a separate announcement from BT is imminent. "We continue to have discussions with the BPI and we hope to announce an outcome acceptable to …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    BPI retards

    > "The individuals responsible for operating The Pirate Bay have total disregard for the rights of musicians," he said

    And the individuals at Google, who provide all of those same nice links ?

    Why not address your business model Mr Fscktard? Incapable? clueless? wanting to retain your extortionate price levels indefinitely?

    1. andreas koch
      Pint

      @ AC 1627h-- Re: BPI retards

      >And the individuals at Google, who provide all of those same nice links ?<

      The individuals at Google are rich, that's different.

      There.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    oh noes!! now ill have to use one of the many other file sharing websites.

  3. EddieD

    Annoying, but predictable...

    ...and the block will last all of five minutes until an alternative is found.

    Napster was blocked, then there was AudioGalaxy.

    After that Kazaa....

    After that E-donkey...

    After that Torrents....

    There are always other indexing sites - www.google.com for example, so this block will accomplish precisely zero.

    Ah well, it makes the 'hard-pressed music industry' feel good, so maybe they'll be quiet for a while.

    1. John G Imrie

      Re: Annoying, but predictable...

      The E-Donkey client may be dead but the network is still going strong. Check out E-Mule

      1. Danny 14

        Re: Annoying, but predictable...

        Actually at first there were newsgroups. There are still newsgroups.

        1. chr0m4t1c

          Re: Annoying, but predictable...

          Ssssshhhhhhh!

          Don't tell them about the newsgroups!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wankers

    What actual quantitative evidence was the judge provided, based on which this judgement was made? Was it statistically significant?

    And moreover, what was he fed ,dined and wined on? On which yacht?

    Please start listing alternatives and idiots guides ,how to do VPNs, proxies etc.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Wankers

      >>"What actual quantitative evidence was the judge provided, based on which this judgement was made? Was it statistically significant?"

      >>"And moreover, what was he fed ,dined and wined on? On which yacht?"

      And what evidence do [b]you[/b] have the judge was given any kind of inducement?

      (note: wanting to believe something doesn't count as 'evidence')

      1. Ben Tasker

        Re: Wankers

        And what evidence do [b]you[/b] have the judge was given any kind of inducement?

        We all know it happens sometimes, but as you say - evidence is necessary.

        It's far more likely that the judge just doesn't understand how the Internet works, and therefore doesn't understand how short-sighted and pointless his ruling actually is. It scores great propaganda points for the *PI's and the *AAs but the real world effects are much smaller (wedge based arguments aside).

        Sadly, it's us that will pay. Possibly with some freedom, but definitely financially. The ISPs are going to have to pay running costs for this, the media industry have to cough up their 5K. The problem is, in both cases their main source of money is us!

        1. The First Dave
          Headmaster

          Re: Wankers

          Don't forget that this was still basically a civil case - therefore the judge does not get to choose the punishment. Therefore whether or not he understands the effectiveness of this doesn't come into it - he was asked for a blocking order based on several (overseas) trials that have all found PB guilty, so there was only ever going to be one outcome.

  5. kevin biswas

    weeping lawyers

    Won't someone think of the poor musicians ! wont someone think of the poor sound engineers ! All conveniently forgetting to mention that the artists only get a pittance and the suits and their lawyers get to keep the lions share,

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Hang on a sec

    But doesn't this go against the recent ruling from the EU?

  7. Lee Dowling Silver badge

    Methinks any and all statistical measure of piracy in the UK will still go UP this year. In fact, I'd bet on it if I could be bothered.

    I can see where the courts are coming from - this is illegal and can't be condoned - but tail-chasing exercises while record companies are still making record profits each years seems a bit silly. Of course you have to do something with the legal framework but it's all a bit pointless and won't change the way the industry records piracy (i.e. everything we didn't sell on a title we wanted to shift 50m units must have been a pirate, no matter the quality or the available data).

    I don't pirate, myself, but it's going to increase again. And why would I pirate the junk that they show? I haven't been to the cinema in 5+ years, because it's all junk, and vastly overpriced. You could let me in for free most nights and I still wouldn't bother to go. I re-buy 20+ year old series on DVD to have something decent to watch and not have to worry about the DRM, because everything else is tripe. Even the new stuff I like (e.g. Not Going Out, etc.) I wait for the DVD or just watch on iPlayer. I don't even buy music - never have - because I don't listen to it except by accident if someone else puts a radio on or something.

    Yet I still could spend hundreds or even thousands a year on the right media, and the right quality material, if it were available. Still could spend hours in cinemas eating high-markup popcorn if there was anything worth watching at a sensible price (you have to compete with DVD's, games and TV that work out to significantly less than £1 / hour over their lifetimes). Still could be telling all my pals about the film I just saw, etc. I do still spend buckets on games (mostly indie now because the AAA's are thoughtless eye candy). If there was ANYTHING worth doing that for or any way to do it sensibly, I'd be doing it. But there isn't, and I'm not a pirate, do I spend an awful lot of money ELSEWHERE. They count that as "loss of earnings" and pour the rest of their profit into lawsuits rather than content and yet still next year the problem will get worse again (by their reckoning).

    Until you realised this, please carry on chasing your tails, media-industries. Here's hoping after about 20-30 shutdowns like this, people just get pissed with the "big 5" ISP's (the only ones required to put this block in place) and move elsewhere instead, or the ISP's and courts get bored with piracy STILL increasing after they've supposedly put measures in place to curtail it (which means the measures are worthless and hence not worth the court's time to implement).

    Circumventing this block is seriously as simple as using an ISP that doesn't have it, or any of a million and one more "technical" workarounds.

    But I *GUARANTEE* you that next year piracy rates will still rise again. Because the problem is not the pirate, and not the "free" price.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      They shoot themselves in the foot EVERYTIME

      Speaking for myself here, what others do is down to them.

      I'm an impatient git who refuses to wait x day\weeks\months\years to get the latest TV Shows\Series from overseas. If I had a legal method of downloading the latest and greatest at a reasonable price then I would use it, but no, there isn't one. So I download the stuff and then buy the Box Sets when they come out on BD in the UK.

      Even if I waited for the Box Sets to come out, I'd still want an HD Digital copy that I could have on my Media Server to watch on whatever device I wanted at home. Fair rights usage and all that.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: They shoot themselves in the foot EVERYTIME

        I was surprised to see the latest season of "The Big Bang Theory" on DVD will also ship with a digital copy, hope it catches on and becomes standard practice, it's ludicrous having to rip everything just to get stuff in a convenient format for media servers/players.

        A lot of what the industry like to call piracy is just people trying to get their favorite shows in formats we can use with the newest technology, or in a reasonable time period, face it, the Internet means that popular media needs simultaneous world wide release, or fans will just end up sharing it

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: They shoot themselves in the foot EVERYTIME

        Exactly - Channel 4 showed 11 episodes of New Girl and then just stopped for no reason.The box set isn't out until 8th October.

        I downloaded the other 11 episodes that had been shown in the US.

        These big TV networks do a great job of not giving people what they want and then moan when people do the equivalent of getting their mate in the USA to send a VHS across the Atlantic.

        1. chr0m4t1c

          Re: They shoot themselves in the foot EVERYTIME

          You can buy it in iTunes for the tiny sum of £40.

          £40!?!

          What the **** are the studio thinking?!?

          (N.B. The studio/distributer sets the price, not Apple. Calm down at the back.)

    2. Leeroy

      Overpriced...

      I went to watch Pirates in the cinema last light with my 2 children and am now £40 worse off.

      On a positive note it was only the three of us watching it at 7pm so it almost offsets the price :)

      I wonder how much it cost them to run the film lol.

  8. jonathan1

    Anyone read the comments on the BBC?

    People keep comparing copyright infringment with theft...which leads to all sorts of confusion between ownership and licensees, and also copying ideas vs taking possessions.

    I'm not condoning it but people should know the difference.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Anyone read the comments on the BBC?

      They deliberately confuse the two. In their eyes it's theft of a physical thing right up to the instant where I want to sell it second hand and suddenly as if by magic it's back to the "you only license it" argument.

      1. pewpie
        WTF?

        Re: Anyone read the comments on the BBC?

        Isn't that a bit like examining the cracks and oily striations in a steaming turd?

    2. JetSetJim
      Big Brother

      Re: Anyone read the comments on the BBC?

      perhaps at least some of those commentards are industry shills?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    anonymouse

    Oh, just go to http://www.anonymouse.org and put the URL in, any URL.

    There BPI, that lasted a long time didn't it ;-)

  10. mafoo
    Facepalm

    Twitter next

    Hey! I know! Lets block twitter next, they are guilty of distributing illegal information (see super injections)

    Next stop, the great firewall of china!

    1. Danny 14
      Angel

      Re: Twitter next

      I once had a super injection but it was for a bone marrow donor. I did feel better about why I was doing it but by christ did it hurt.

      1. mafoo
        Mushroom

        Re: Twitter next

        god damn you autocorrect! <shakes fist>

  11. Haku

    In France they introduced a 3 strike law, online piracy dropped, so did media sales.

    http://www.ghacks.net/2012/04/01/hadopi-cut-piracy-in-france-but-sales-down-as-well/

    How exactly did that move help the media industry?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Online piracy only dropped in France as people moved to VPN's and MAGNET links, hence were no longer *measurable* as pirates....

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Hadopi: torrents => streaming

      The most noticeable effect Hadopi had in France was it boosted streaming websites and megaupload memberships. I wouldn't be surprised to see torrents getting more popular again as a result of megaupload and videobb closing.

      As for this TPB block, my main browser is Opera, and it has a little button for when I'm on a slow network and want to speed up my browsing and that's also helped me in the past when my ISP's DNS servers went down...

  12. Bruce Ordway

    Give us a reasonable alternative

    My wife and I pay a small fortune for access to all the cable media.

    The money is a factor but, convenience is too.

    Companies aren't delivering content "when I want it, where I want it".

    If people were provided a reasonable alternative to Pirate Bay it might not be missed.

    1. NinjasFTW
      Thumb Down

      Re: Give us a reasonable alternative

      I'm in the same boat as you.

      Spending £100+ (not including movies on demand purchases and as a seperate whine its pissing me off that old movies I can buy on DVD for £2.99 are still £5 per view on demand or £6 in HD) a month for the biggest virgin package and yet I still fire up torrents several times a week to get TV episodes that wont be available locally for months or to watch them when I want to watch them. No I will not be paying extra on top of that for virgins TiVo service.

      If it wasn't for occasional international sports I would probably drop almost everything and switch to torrent heavy viewing.

      I want to do the right thing but there is only so much I am willing to pay and recently i've been feeling like i'm past the reasonable limit.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Give us a reasonable alternative

        HA! The cable companies are the biggest pirates of all. My son works in "a foreign land" and he's a big rugby fan. The owner of the establishment he works in looked into getting the 6 nations competition on cable so he and a couple of ex-pats could watch the games.

        The cable company they get their sports television from would supply the 6 nations rugby competition, but only as part of an annual package costing $16,000.

        And they wonder why people pirate stuff!!!!

  13. Dire Critic
    FAIL

    "whole of the creative community will benefit from today's action"

    Bollocks! It's the accountants who'll benefit and they'll just carry on using their finely honed techniques to screw the artists out of even more money.

  14. vgrig_us

    Just shows you what kind of morons lawyers are (not to mention content providers). You don't need The Pirate Bay - it's peer-to-peer.

    Plus, The Pirate Bay publish their ip addresses (and keep changing them) - easily found with simple web search. What - they going to block all search engines in UK? Even if they do - how are they going to block mailing lists? Word of mouth? Non-piratebay owned mirrors? Proxies? And that's just easy workarounds (nmap anyone?)

    1. Allan 1
      Stop

      Ultimately

      While I don't agree with the entertainment industry, I don't agree with the pirates either. There needs to be some middle road everyone can walk.

      Ultimately, if the pirates keep evading the censor, and they will, it will result in a whitelist internet. That is, you will only be able to connect to websites specifically allowed. Everything else will be blocked by default.

      1. Beaver6813
        Facepalm

        Re: Ultimately

        What a load of tosh. They need to make people want to change behaviour, prohibition does not stop anything. People will just move to private networks/dark nets; piracy has been on the internet from day one (except it was just via usenet and irc channels).

      2. richard 7

        Re: Ultimately

        I call bollocks Sir

        Whats happening is everything is becoming more and more biased towards the production companies because they wont evolve.

        I run a business and to stay trading I have to continually update and change the way I interact with the world and my customers. If I dont, the business dies. Simples

        These guys dont want to do this, they dont want to innovate or update, I mean, hell, why should they as they are being afforded special legal protection to carry on as usual. If anyone dares to innovate they get stomped on.

        Piracy is not right, hell I hate the term piracy as it goes with the whole copyright is theft argument too, both of which are tosh. However if I want to consume any of the entertainm,ent I'm faced with an issue. I watch House MD for example. I'm not willing to wait the artifially induced delay from the states, I can buy the episodes so off to Isohunt it is.

        When they do have a good idea they manage to hobble it. Netflix and Lovefilm doing exclusivity deals and being restricted to obscenly old contect. Yes its only £6 a month but to get any assortment of film you need both and THEN you'll only be up to the 90s in terms of recent films.

        Creative output is dropping too, the quality of music, film and TV programming is in freefall and yet somehow they are still making record profits. We've gone from half a dozen good releases of films, probobly the same with albums and TV shows to one of the three a year, if that.

        Make it easier to consume

        Remove artificial limitations

        Make something worth consuming

        Profit

        Simples

        1. PsychicMonkey
          WTF?

          Re: Ultimately

          erm... I agree with some of this, but House (and others...) is on in the UK a couple of days after the US and you can't wait that long?

      3. jubtastic1
        Trollface

        Re: Ultimately

        Whitelisted Internet?

        I suspect you don't work in IT but please stick around because that's the funniest thing I've heard all week

        1. Danny 14

          Re: Ultimately

          Works for China.

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Responsibility now?

    Now that our the internet connections are censored by the BPI who can I sue for all that inappropriate content that shocks, scares and sometimes arouses?

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    .

    So it's not illegal to own and run a website of links (O'Dwyer's TV-Shack) but it is illegal to view such a site?

    What a pile of crock.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    it's funny

    how they think that censorship of this kind makes any difference whatsoever.

    The only difference is, it has set a precedence: "we have already blocked those nasty pirates, so now let's use the momentum and block... eenie meenie miney mo, which one should it be... the hard porn, the pedobear, the occupy the streets "excremists"?

    wait, what about "grey imports" websites, they're illegal too, right?

  18. andreas koch
    Paris Hilton

    When

    is that block supposed to happen?

    Just wondering...

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    the Internet treats censorship as a fault and routes around it

    Time to put Piratebay's content onto a distributed hash table based system. The reason most people don't use Tor is because it is slow. But it needn't be slow if all it needs using for to replace Piratebay is index Magnet link files.

    Use Tor or something similar to post, search for and obtain the Magnet links, then use Bittorrent to download/seed them.

  20. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's only gonna get worse

    TPB will vanish and more pirates will be prosecuted because piracy is a crime.

    1. vgrig_us

      Re: It's only gonna get worse

      LOL! :-P

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's only gonna get worse

      yes, piracy is a crime! Hijacking ships is a heinous crime..

      Copyright violation on the other hand is not a crime, it is a civil offence...

      Thats not to say its right, but it is not a crime in itself...

      Misinformation is just as bad as censorship..

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    pointless

    Im not saying that one way or the other is right, that's a separate issue but I really do question the intelligence of the people who started this block the bad guy motion.

    Do they honestly think that it will make the slightest bit of difference?

    I can promise you, that within a few min of them block TPB I could be back on it again.

    I also wonder how much it is going to cost to do all this legal stuff, and finally I wonder what will happen to the biggest torrent distribution site of them all, Google.

    I dunno, all seems a bit knee jerk to be honest, as I said, TPB, right or wrong, it doesn't matter and is not apart of my point I just feel the folk making this up has no idea what they are trying to do.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    When the pirate bay was blocked here in Denmark it took a few days for people to figure out how to get around the "block" now anyone can do it in 5 min with a google search.

  23. Mectron

    On what Ground

    Since the Pirate bay has yet to even remotly done something illegal. Why illegally cencoring it?

    shutdown the MPAA/RIAA and world wide local branch and the problem wlll be solved.

  24. AndrueC Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    >give consumers the content they want, how they want it, for a fair price

    The trouble is that a lot of consumers don't agree on what constitutes a 'fair' price. Quite a lot of them seem to think that 'bugger all' is a fair price :-/

    Still - bully-boy tactics aren't going to work. It's too easy to get round them.

    1. Thorne

      Bugger all is a fair price for most people.

      In Australia free to air TV doesn't charge

      Youtube doesn't charge

      Pirate sites don't charge

      They still make money without charging their users. You can have a free streaming service paid for by advertising. The film industry just want us to keep forking out $50 for dvds. I haven't watched a DVD in years. Streaming is easier and more convient. The stupid film industry make it complicated, expensive or not available and wonder why people pirate.

      They need all the content in one place with a free service (standard def, stereo) paid for by ads and a premium service (hi def, surround sound) paid for by substription or pay per view.

      The moment they restrict content or charge like wounded bulls, piracy wins.

      1. PyLETS
        FAIL

        Charging for content without annoying their customers

        They don't seem to have too much trouble getting money from radio broadcasters, and public and commercial spaces where music is played, by going after the business beneficiary of the music not the listeners. Radio tends to be advertising or donation or license fee driven. Make transmission of music legal over the net to ISPs which pay a commission. Not exactly rocket science.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why do they even bother with this unlawful 'legal' futility?

    TPB already switched to magnet links, so there is no tracker to block, and other DNS providers like OpenDNS etc. do not block DNS lookup for TPB; so the IP trolls have won a worthless tissue paper facade, nothing more!

    The law has behaved like an ass, the judge(s) just humiliated themselves.

    If the IP trolls try more technical means to block sites, there is plenty of technology which can easily defeat their attempts.

    1. Danny 14

      Re: Why do they even bother with this unlawful 'legal' futility?

      Are the ISPs really going to simply delist the IPs? Wow.

  26. Chad H.
    FAIL

    Im delighted with the ruling

    The luddites who claim to work in the music industry (remember as free music on the radio killed the music industry decades ago there can be no workers in the music Industry) have spent millions achieving nothing.

    Shame they aren't bright enough to realise it, then they might be able to afford higher royalties to those poor starving artists than money put legal decisions.

    1. Thorne

      Re: Im delighted with the ruling

      Music is harder than film as music is almost always stored on a portable device. Film can be streamed so there is no need to store it. Music needs to be cheap (as in a few cents per song) and convient to get. Nobody want to pay $30 for a CD with one or two good songs anymore.

  27. Jeebus

    If you hear a tune in passing you are a criminal, worse than a rapist.

    1. Crisp

      What about those people that stand around outside live gigs?

      Hanging around, stealing music with their ears!

  28. Neoc

    "properly licensed digital services"

    Yeah... right. Bought the recent TIntin movie (yes, *bought*) and on the cover it promised a "play anywhere" digital copy. "Really" thinkest I. Might save me having to rip the bluray disk.

    So I read the instructions. Play anywhere? Yep. So long as you have iTunes on that "anywhere". And Windows Media Player.

    a**holes.

    1. Stu_The_Jock

      Re: "properly licensed digital services"

      If the details stating the requirements to iTunes and WMP are not on the OUTSIDE of the packaging, then you can legally return it as "unfit for purpose" as it does meet the description printed on the box. Text sealed inside a plastic film and unreadable until opened CANNOT prevent return for this. Same as if you open a software package and don't agree to the full terms you can legally return it for a refund. (It's just the shops like to kick up a fuss over it)

      1. Neoc

        Re: "properly licensed digital services"

        Didn't care about that - loaded the bluray into the drive, fired-up Slyfox AnyDVD and MakeMKV and let them do their thing for about an hour. Voila - 1080p MKV viewable anywhere, anywhen.

        I *was*, however, making a comment on the calcification of the industry's thinking. ^_^

  29. Howard Hanek
    Pirate

    The Only Blocks Here Are the Blockheads at High Court

    http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/graphics/icons/comment/pirate_32.png

    Open DNS. Address spoofing. Aliases, a few simple sixty second solutions to negate all the high cost legal talent squandered on stupidity. Or perhaps by stupidity......

  30. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What bothers me the most is their hypocritical claim that they are doing this for the "artists", while, as everyone knows, the only one benefiting from this are the record companies themselves.

    Whether an artist is able to make a living mainly depends on the number of people knowing him/her because this determines the number of people buying merchandise and going to concerts, which provide the main part of an artist's income.

    An artist whose music can be freely downloaded will of course have a bigger audience which will more than make up for any loss in income due to not selling CD's.

    1. Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face

      To be fair, there's hypocrisy on both sides, with people getting all high and mighty about some grand principle of internet freedom when all they want is to get their grubby mits on the latest DVD without paying for it.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I want my grubby mitts, not really

        although these days, I can't even bother to steal. I mean, you go to the movies, you pay for them - and they are crap, just about 100% of the movies. So you lose money. Oops, sorry, can't touch what's in the bag unless you pay for it, this way sir, don't forge your £5 popcorn bag!

        OK, you think it slightly unfair, and as movies go, they're one off, no chance to try them out. So you "steal" them. Oh boy, they're still crap, you lose bandwidth and the electricity bill goes up too.

        At least with music you know that, if you're careful enough, listen to some tunes on the radio, etc, when you buy them, you don't lose out completely and you'll listen to it again. How many times will you watch a so-so movie? A couple of times a really brilliant one...

  31. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's all about the service.

    Ashcroft hoped the cutting off of The Pirate Bay would open up a "level playing field for properly licensed digital services".

    I doubt they can match the SERVICE of The Pirate Bay. TPB has...

    Movies without adverts.

    Movies that play on almost any device.

    Just about any film ever made, regardless of which studio made it.

    Simultaneous worldwide availability.

    Excellent quality, and there's usually a warning or two if not.

    No buffering issues as with streaming services.

    Whole TV series wrapped up in a single download.

    Unlimited download speed for most content.

    Music that's not available on Spotify iTunes etc.

    There's probably more, but I can't think of them right now.

    I'd gladly pay for that kind of service if the "properly licensed digital services" could do it. However, they're too busy trying to protect their OLD business model to listen to what people actually want.

    1. Toastan Buttar
      Unhappy

      Re: It's all about the service.

      "No buffering issues as with streaming services."

      Mind you, if a movie only has a handful of seeders, you could effectively be 'buffering' for 48 hours before you can watch it.

  32. Spider
    Facepalm

    you can charge what you like

    but doesn't mean folks will pay it!

    Selling a product or service is directly related to what people are willing to pay for it. TPB helps infringe copyright, we all know that. But public aversion to a minor crime is negated by what they see as perceived racketeering.

    Without widespread public support you cannot hope to prevent largescale piracy (there will always be some), and that will not change until the pricing model changes.

  33. lotus49
    Facepalm

    Dutch Pirate Party

    The Pirate Party already has a dedicated TPB proxy. A quick search for "piratenpartij pirate bay proxy" will lead you to a big list of proxies. There you go High Court, fixed that for you.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Dutch Pirate Party

      UK Pirate Party too: http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/press/releases/2012/apr/30/pirate-bay-blocking-ordered-uk/

  34. Tony Paulazzo
    Gimp

    prohibition does not stop anything

    Cost of the UK war on drugs - £16 Billion. A year!

    http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2009/4/7/the-cost-of-drug-laws-16-billion

    Sometimes I think human beans are really stupid.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Human "beans"

  35. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Ye Old Not The Nine O'clock News Judges Joke

    Brilliantly sums up how out of touch judges are about technology.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VgwxKW0J6I

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Freetards in panic

    They might have to spend some of their pocketmoney now.

    Quick, get Anonymous on the case..

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Freetards in panic

      "They might have to spend some of their pocketmoney now."

      actually, the main complaint is they still dont have a method to *legally* obtain the content they want in a timely manner. If i'm watching a series on TV and i miss an episode, what are my options at that point? i can carry on watching the rest of the series, missing that episode. i can wait 6 months or a year for the DVD to come out. or i can just torrent that one episode.

      very rarely is there an option of 'watch it on the tv broadcaster's website', and if there is then its with their shitty streaming/buffering system that might well be fine for people on modern internet, but for people that are also being screwed over by BTs utter ineptitude, make it basically impossible to watch a show.

    2. Keep Refrigerated
      FAIL

      Re: Freetards in panic

      Many freetards are already spending their own money on VPN services and membership of newsgroups. I think the problem here is availability of content (at the right price point) rather than wanting stuff for free. The free argument has been successfully rebutted many times already.

      What I find incredulous is that big media companies complaining about how much money pirate sites make through advertising have failed to recognise a new business opportunity and get in on the game!

      How many freetards would stop a downloaded TV episode that had a couple of advertisements tacked on the front, or even a commercial break in the middle? How many would go online to find an ad free one? Not many, they'd sit through or skip ahead like they do with legacy TV channels.

      Why does big media continue to favor spending wads of cash on expensive lawyers, rather than embrace a new revenue stream? It's idiotic and arse-backwards.

      As far as the block is concerned, I will have fun watching them trying to catch a swarm of bees with a thimble! Can't wait too see what their next comedic move will be.

  37. The Fuzzy Wotnot
    Facepalm

    A big round of applause!

    So they're not blocking, File****e.com, ISO***t, TVB**.com,Dem*****.com and a million others just the one that's popular, so the next thing is that even the least technical person will simply head straight to Google and put "download TV/movie/game XYZ torrent".

    What a complete and utter waste of time and money!

    1. JimmyPage Silver badge
      Big Brother

      Not yet ...

      but bear in mind the "designer high" model, the UK has "pioneered" and which has sparked the interest of other countries (so we are told).

      You'll soon hear the record companies wailing that new sites are springing up faster than they can go to court over, and pushing for new laws which allow the government (probably the Home Office, who are feeling a bit low after having to split off the Justice Department) to block given sites *before* they have been deemed """"illegal"""", "just in case".

      And, like the new powers to ban substances before they have been analysed, how many sites do you think will be unblocked after proven to be innocent ?

      Growing up in the 80s, with "just say no" and Grange Hill warbling away in front of Nancy, it seemed then the "war on drugs" was a pathetic joke, and the few civil libertarians who criticised it were just secret tokers. However, it's clear in hindsight, that they were right. It has allowed the government to amass power over the population that it just can't resist using elsewhere now. First the child protection industry cottoned on, and now look at how many laws there are to "think of the children".

      I predict, before the year is out, some MP will call for powers to block websites without scrutiny - in the name of "rights holders". The only good thing, is we know how impossible that is.

  38. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Block? What block?

    MAFIAAFire: ThePiratebay Dancing!

    Add the add-on to Firefox, Unblocking. Done. 2 Minutes. Big deal.

  39. Crisp
    FAIL

    Once again

    The government start of with a gross misunderstanding of how the internet works, and then legislates against it.

  40. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pirate Bay was rubbish anyway.

  41. dotslash
    FAIL

    The internet will always win

    People in power are stupid. The populous is clever.

    Therefore, the internet will always win.

    1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

      "The populous is clever."

      By definition, the populous is average intelligence.

      1. dotslash

        Re: "The populous is clever."

        and thusly, people in power are stupid

  42. Steve Browne
    Facepalm

    Ho hum

    I wonder if they really will see any increase in sales as a result.

  43. Senior Ugli

    Kickasstorrents and Demonoid serve me quite well

    If you are an emerging musician release you music on bandcamp, and sell physical copies through it. They take 30% which seems alot more fair than the big boys.

    The main reason I like piracy is because I dont want to think any of my money is going in some mugs pocket like Simon Cowell.

    Also is it me or have movies really gone downhill in the last 5/6 years? any really memorable titles? or just remakes, sequels, and films about comics no one likes?

    1. Toastan Buttar
      Thumb Up

      I enjoyed 'Hugo'.

  44. Petrossa
    Thumb Up

    Automatic TPB proxyifier

    The dutch suffered the same fate so they set up this site that automatically forwards you through a random proxy (Tim Kuik is a RIAA shill, hence the title of the site)

    http://www.fucktimkuik.org/

  45. Cthonus
    Megaphone

    Did anyone see the article in The Times about the senior citizen who's been copying and distributing movies to the US Army overseas for years. Said he'd done thousands of rips.

    RIAss of American = <silence>

    One law it isn't.

  46. King Jack
    Pirate

    Am I missing something?

    If the PirateBay can make money without charging it's users, then why don't the owners of the content clone the pirate bay and reap all the £milllions the bay rakes in?

    Sounds like someone somewhere is lying.

  47. Neil 38

    When will the BPI / MPAA realise that pirating costs pirates money in index sites, news provider access and higher price ISPs, although small compared to the retail value of the stolen content is does prove that downloaders are prepared to pay for a quality service.

    Instead of ruling with an iron fist, they might want to compete and provide access to their content at reasonable prices with the same quality you can enjoy by downloading it illegally, compared to the utter lower-than-standard-definition shite you get through services like NetFlix and LoveFilm.

  48. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wow...

    At the time of posting there are 80 comments, all in agreement with one another. Just take a step back people and think: Is this because everyone is in agreement, or is it because these topics have become self selecting and people who disagree with the general consensus will no longer post because of the type of replies they get?

    I know that there are regular commentators on the Reg who work for the music industry in one way or another, so: Guess which I think is more likely.

  49. adam payne
    Stop

    Bully boy tactics have been shown in the past to not work and they are just continuing down the same road. It's time for the industry to stop flogging it's ancient business model and get into this century.

    Businesses evolve and business models change but there seems to be very little change in the music industry.

    It's time for them to adapt or die.

  50. Glen Davies
    Facepalm

    Do people still use TPB?

    Will blocking TPB have any effect?

    I wonder how many people still visit TPB directly, over those that now just google "[film/song title] torrent" and click on one of the many available links returned.

  51. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Since getting the Tivo service from Virgin, my torrent use has dropped a lot as now I can watch series whenever I like and just pick up the episodes when I have time, which is really useful when you've got a newborn in the house.

    However, it deletes series after x amount of days, so that serial of Criminal Minds I recorded but didn't get around to watching has now been deleted, so it's off to the torrents we go.

    So close, but there's still a way to go.

    AC - Just in case they're watching.

  52. boggled
    Mushroom

    Most ISP's router all there traffic though IXP's

    If the Government really wanted control they would of placed the order on LONAP, LINX or other IXP's

    My hunch like in the states they are already sitting within all of the IXP's monitoring our traffic.

    1. Petrossa

      Good luck monitoring IXP trafffic.Even a small island like the UK generates 25 gbits/sec on LONAP alone. Maybe that humongous thing being build by the NSA could do that, but i doubt they want to waste their resources on smalltime issues such a kid downloading Lady GaGa

      1. boggled
        FAIL

        They already do. They use three floors of one of AT&T buildings where there main Atlantic internet feed for AT&T come into.

        Capturing that kind of data is not an issue, now processing that into something that can mean something now that's another story. :)

        1. Petrossa
          Stop

          Monitoring equals doing something useful with it in my mind. It doesn't mean capturing.In March 2006, the European Union enacted a Directive on Mandatory Retention of Communications Traffic Data, which requires Member States to require communications providers to retain communications data for a period of between 6 months and 2 years.

          Very droll and equally useless.

  53. chr0m4t1c

    Thank for sod all, Virgin

    "As a responsible ISP, Virgin Media complies with court orders addressed to the company but strongly believes that changing consumer behaviour to tackle copyright infringement also needs compelling legal alternatives, such as our agreement with Spotify, to give consumers access to great content at the right price."

    That would be the "free Spotify Premium" offer, would it? The one where you can have it for free for a whole three months before just paying the regular price?

    As offers go, it's not very compelling; certainly not as compelling as (say) 50% off. And it certainly isn't anything to shout about.

  54. HamsterNet
    FAIL

    Simples

    From what I read the ISPs only have to remove TPB from THEIR DNS servers...

    So just change your DNS servers to Google's in your router and bamb the filtering is undone...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Simples

      Not for long. All ISPs are going to be forced block TPB.

      1. Petrossa
        FAIL

        Re: Simples

        Failed in the Netherlands, exact same situation. It actually caused a big upsurge in TPB traffic. Best promotion ever, to be forbidden.

  55. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    hello im here to block your internets

    i represent a legal firm called Money&Money Associates.

    We have been following the Money very closely.

    Have you?

  56. The Alpha Klutz
    Mushroom

    hello i am going to destroy you

    and you are going to be made to enjoy your destruction

    then, i will build you back up again and destroy you a second time

    that time you will made not to enjoy your destruction.

    you will jump when i say frog.

    you will bark when i say dog

    you will be made to smoke sub-standard crack.

    I will be home for dinner honey,

    Sincerely,

    Joe 'Typical Record Company Executive'

    Executive Director of Typical Music.

  57. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Reality can bite you in the arse

    If you don't get out of denial, sooner than later reality will bite you in the arse.

  58. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Simples

    Lets fight back - spread the word of the best sites which allow music from budding artists who do not use the BPI etc. I will start:

    bandcamp.com

  59. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What a waste of energy

    This delusional idea that people should be allowed to have and illegally distribute copyright protected works for free comes from the lack of gray matter. Since those who have this mental illness are the minority, we should send them to a safe place for treatment, one with bars so they don't wander off into society.

  60. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    .

    Hmm, i guess Tor is going to get a lot more users, open dns too.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Oops...

      Some people need to learn the hard way.

This topic is closed for new posts.

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