back to article Pirate Bay ties up in Peru

Notorious bittorrent tracker The Pirate Bay has moved again, taking up residence in Peru. Previously housed in the .ac domain assigned to Ascension Island, the service has moved itself to the .pe namespace. As ever, there's some obfuscation going on here, as the IP address associated with the site – 194.71.107.27 – is …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Removing a domain name does little to those that will actively seek out the Pirate Bay.

    1. Don Jefe

      No, but those actively seeking out TPB, and similar, have never been the targets for the legislation that forces them to move. The people who dedicate time and resources to those activities will always be doing it. It's the casual downloaders who go to those sites just because they're easy to find and use that the legislation targets.

      The casual downloaders are also the ones who tend to have money and are willing to purchase something with it if it's too much (any) hassle to get it another way. The hardcore downloader that just download stuff for its own sake were never going to be customers anyway.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        It's irrelevant anyway. Google for 'The Pirate Bay' and the 2nd result is a list of "proxy" sites. These will transparently redirect to wherever The Pirate Bay happens to be hosted making the domain switch invisible to casual downloaders.

        This is exactly what will happen with this porn censorship too.

        1. Great Bu

          Exactly.

          The whole thing is utterly irrelevant because Google is a thing. Until this stops being the case, all the rest is just smoke filled coffee house crap (there is a prize if you can name the film that quote is from...*)

          *Prize not actually real.

          1. Sir Runcible Spoon
            Joke

            Re: Prize

            A Few Good Men

            http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0007468/quotes

            I googled it.

            1. Great Bu
              Thumb Up

              Re: Prize

              Your prize is a copy of 'A Few Good Men' - you can collect your prize by googling "Pirate Bay Proxy" then searching for 'A Few Good Men' on there...... :)

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    No shortage of countries they can head to

    I mean, once they've exhausted Latin America there's still the whole of Asia, Africa and the Middle East to work through yet.

    Actually their best bet would be to head for Iran - thepiratebay.ir. After all, Iran has openly stated that it refuses to enforce American IP laws, in fact they flaunt the fact that they break them - Iranian universities proudly declare using unauthorised copies of textbooks and pirated versions of Windows. In fact, the only stumbling block I can see there is Iran's anti-porn policy, and that could be negotiated around by having TPB simply "block" requests from Iranian IP addresses (which Iran's more knowledgeable citizenry would already know how to circumvent with proxies anyway!) I'm sure Iran would welcome the massive middle finger to the US that TPB represents!

    Failing that, there's always the final, uncensorable TLD of last resort - .onion. Maybe they should just cut to the chase and head there now anyway, because each time they shift country the US is going to bring its economic pressure to bear and make that country hop-frog TPB anyway.

    1. Thorne

      Re: No shortage of countries they can head to

      "Actually their best bet would be to head for Iran - thepiratebay.ir. After all, Iran has openly stated that it refuses to enforce American IP laws"

      Problem with that is, Iran is an Islamic country and the Pirate Bay is chock full of porn. Considered they think earthquakes are caused by promiscuous women, God would really punish them for hosting TPB.

      Asia might be a better bet.

      1. Vociferous

        Re: No shortage of countries they can head to

        > Asia might be a better bet.

        Indeed. Never engage in an IP war in Asia.

        1. Intractable Potsherd
          Coat

          Re: No shortage of countries they can head to

          Surely Argentina would be the place to go - thepiratebay.ar ...

          Okay, I'm leaving ...

      2. Rukario
        Headmaster

        Re: No shortage of countries they can head to

        > Asia might be a better bet.

        Last I checked, Iran is in Asia.

  3. pierce
    Pirate

    gee, does The Register get a cease and desist order now for pointing to TPB and aiding and abetting in distributing the magic numbers--err--magnet links to said copywronged crap?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No, they just get added to the censorship list too.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's all good

    They'll have just enough time to enjoy a good meal before they are hauled off to prison - again. Some morons just never learn.

  5. Khaptain Silver badge

    Sales Figures

    Does this mean that the music industry et al will begin publishing massive increases in their sales figures, somehow I think not.

    Rather than spending time and effort chasing the TPB, why not simply start producing quality music....instead of the plastic cheese attempts that we hear today...

    1. Vociferous

      Re: Sales Figures

      > Does this mean that the music industry et al will begin publishing massive increases in their sales figures, somehow I think not.

      Well, it kindof does, as services like Spotify and Pandora are doing well. Or they would be, if the record industry wasn't trying to kill them.

      But sales are not really the issue, protecting the industry from competition is. Case in point: it is impossible for people in small countries in the EU to legally download from large online vendors like Amazon. I found this out when I was in Sweden, and it turns out that a) the record industry does not permit cross-border downloading of music in the EU, and b) the Swedish online record shops are pants if you want anything but Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus. That Arch Enemy, a Swedish band, could be legally downloaded in Britain but not in Sweden was a nice touch which really hit home just how happy the record companies are to throw the artists under the bus if it protects themselves from competition.

    2. Don Jefe

      Re: Sales Figures

      While the entertainment industry itself is certainly not blameless as far as over zealous prosecution, it's important to remember that a lot of that prosecution has been speculative attempts by no name law firms to extort money from people. The entertainment industry didn't discourage that, but at the same time they weren't encouraging it either.

      It comes down to a bunch of lawyers with exceptionally low ethics and no name trying to make a bunch of money on the backs of someone else's fight. Kind of like medical device lawsuits here in the US. A lawyer or ten are guaranteed to open new firms anytime there's an opportunity for a medical device suit, simply for that one suit. It has an analogue to domain name speculation, they try everything and see if something sticks.

      My point is, that while the industry bodies have certainly been epic jackasses, the unaffiliated lawyers have been far worse. As usual, if you want to finger the real villain in nearly any story, look towards the lawyers.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Soon to be irrelevent anyway

    I believe that TPB will soon have a bittorrent shared "web site" so there will not even be a domain name that is a single point of legal attack any more.

    But really, the lesson of TPB that is ignored by media is that people want stuff that "just works", no stupid DRM and regional restrictions. Several studies have shown this, as reported by El Reg's very own pro-IP journalist Andrew Orlowski (such as this article http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/16/bmr_music_survey as an example).

  7. Zot

    These pirates are thieves, not 'leftists'

    There's definitely a sense of kinship with TPB in this article, and it makes me wonder about the amount of copyrighted material sitting around the Register's office, and whether they understand the seriousness of piracy for those that are affected by it.

    Pirates sneer through the endorphin rush their little 'triumph' of theft gives them. It's pathetic, if you think about it.

    But the justifications for it are already swimming through your head though, aren't they? The 'I do it because [fill in the blank]' excuses are always hilarious though. Just don't.

    [edit] I'm sorry, it's just something that I feel passionate about, especially when I see my own software being hacked on the net. I'm not a 'big corporate.'

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      So, in your view having copyrighted material in one's possession is proof of piracy ?

      I have bought over 1000 books (dead tree prints, not PDFs), and they're all copyrighted.

      I have a video library of over 500 DVDs bought in stores - all copyrighted. And most of them impose upon me that wonderful anti-piracy video. I hear that, when you actually pirate a film, you're not bothered with that and you get to see the film directly.

      I have a games library also in the two hundreds. Store bought, every one of them.

      Damn, I must be a 1st-class pirate with all that copyrighted material lying around.

      I wonder when I'll be getting that endorphin rush you mention ? That's going to be one hell of a ride.

      1. Zot

        To 'Pascal'

        You know damn well I was talking about piracy, not purchases. The moral stance of pirates is not to think about the bigger picture, and it's the old 'us and them' excuses that I hear most often, followed by "they're big, it won't matter" and the classic, "but piracy makes it popular." They are all self justifications for something that is illegal, whether you agree with the law or not.

    2. Vociferous

      Re: These pirates are thieves, not 'leftists'

      Welcome to european and, apparently, south american politics, in which the far left, especially the anarchists, feel that opposition to private ownership of property also logically implies opposition to property RIGHTS.

      Mind you, it's not exclusive -- you don't have to be an ultra-leftwinger to agree that copyright legislation on music & film is insane and growing worse.

    3. Mark .

      Re: These pirates are thieves, not 'leftists'

      What about those who rip a legally bought DVD they own so they can watch it on their Windows PC, Android phone or tablet, or smart TV, and don't want to deal with the DRMed online offerings that only let you watch on some subset of devices? (Illegal to rip copy-protected DVDs in the US at least; in the UK even doing this for even non-copy-protected stuff was illegal, though I think they recently changed that.)

      What about those who pay for TV, but download the programme anyway to watch at a more convenient time (i.e., timeshifting), as it's less hassle than video recording?

      All copyright infringment, but are they all thieves? If these are what you see as hilarious justifications, then do said people stop buying DVDs and paying for TV?

      1. Zot

        Re: These pirates are thieves, not 'leftists'

        That WAS the hilarious justification. Just doing something because it's convenient and easy for you, doesn't make it correct. You can live without doing that, and it can become an addiction - People say they actually buy everything they are watching and listening to on their servers, but I bet there's many with other stuff on their drives, because, hey it was easy.

        Ask a teenager how many songs they've got on their device? 2,000 is it? That must have been expensive, or not.

        It's got to a point that people openly admit that they've downloaded an dodgy film when they are on the IMDB forums without even thinking or caring about whether it's right or wrong. They've grown up with it and see it as perfectly OK behaviour.

        I like to fight the attitude whenever I can, unfortunately it's like using a mop to clean up a tsunami. Oh well.

        1. Zot

          Re: These pirates are thieves, not 'leftists'

          Of course being against copying software, films and music for free isn't very popular among people that do. They can't put themselves in the shoes of the people that make the stuff they are freely taking, stuff that takes a long time to make. But hopefully one day they'll grow up a bit.

        2. dogwatch

          Re: These pirates are thieves, not 'leftists'

          Well, you _are fighting a tsunami - it's called 'the Internet', a.o.t.

          The film and music industry will adjust, eventually. They have before, several times, but never willingly. They never learn. The IT revolution is changing everything. Everything. Even me...

        3. Pascal Monett Silver badge

          Re: They've grown up with it and see it as perfectly OK behaviour

          Well if a billion people see something as perfectly OK, then I guess it should be.

          The media industry has only itself to blame for this situation. It has been dragged screaming, kicking and resisting all the way into the digital age, and since it did absolutely nothing to adapt, the only thing it can do now is rear-guard harassment.

          Do you honestly think that I am going to think about copyright when I download a torrent of a film that I have already paid for in order to get a proper digital-friendly copy that I can put on my personal media store ? No, I don't and I won't.

          You can throw any legal argument at me that you wish to, the fact remains that I have paid my lifetime license to own a the right to view a film in my house. From that point on, how I view said film is my business and mine only. And if I want to have my video library on a handy personal NAS hooked up to my TV, then nobody has a pipsqueak to say about it.

    4. Oh Homer
      Headmaster

      Re: These pirates are thieves, not 'leftists'

      Copyright law says otherwise. Indeed there is no copyright legislation anywhere in the world that defines copyright infringement as "theft".

      In the words of Justice Guy Newey:

      'The fruits of an infringement of copyright cannot, as it seems to me, be equated with the stolen coins. While the owner of the coins will have lost title to the coins at law, the copyright owner will have retained title throughout both in equity and at law,” the Judge wrote.

      “A copyright infringer is more akin to a trespasser rather than to the thief of the coins. That leads to the next point: that a landowner has no proprietary claim to the fruits of a trespass,” he added.'

      Which is just a fancy way of saying copying is not theft.

      "Stealing" requires that you be deprived of the article being stolen, but how exactly does a copy deprive you of the original article, which is clearly still in your possession?

      The only thing you might claim to have "lost" is a sale, and even that claim is highly speculative, since you have no way of knowing for a fact that the person who copied your "IP" had either the means or the will to actually pay for it. In the event that he didn't then, even if he hadn't copied it, no sale would have transpired anyway, and since you haven't lost the material that was copied then nothing has actually been lost, either in terms of your existing property or even in terms of a sale. Indeed, even if he did have the means and the will to pay for it, the fact that he chose to copy it instead is still not theft under the law, it's basically a form of trespass.

      This is no more "theft" than window shopping. Do shopkeepers belligerently chase after people who look but don't buy, and threaten them with prosecution for "stealing a lost sale"? How about if those window shoppers subsequently buy that same article from someone else, or make it themselves, essentially "copying it"? Would the shopkeeper have a claim then? Which shopkeeper has ever done such a thing, or even contemplated it?

      It's ridiculous.

      This is the fundamental flaw in the highly opportunistic "IP" business model, which amounts to a sort of unsolicited public recital accompanied by demands for payment, and subsequently all kinds of threats and hysteria if that payment is not forthcoming, a bit like if Al Capone had been a street performer.

    5. Killraven

      Re: These pirates are thieves, not 'leftists'

      "and whether they understand the seriousness of piracy for those that are affected by it."

      According to multiple studies, in multiple countries, the seriousness of piracy is that it INCREASES legitimate sales.

      You have a problem with that?

  8. An0n C0w4rd

    Geo-ip won't help much

    According to http://bgp.he.net/AS51040#_peers the IP range is hosted on it's own BGP ASN (AS51040) which is multi-homed to 3 different providers. Their IRR record seems to indicate that they could announce their prefixes to as many as 6 upstreams.

    That makes it easy to move between providers as they come under pressure to cease the connection or face the Wrath of Khan, I mean, The Music and Film Industry.

    I'm somewhat amused by the IRR record that states it is for "Piratpartiet North Korea"

  9. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    leftists..yeah, right...

    And those who practice white colar crimes are called what?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: leftists..yeah, right...

      Politicians

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: leftists..yeah, right...

        I was going to go with Banksters.

        1. Sanctimonious Prick

          Re: leftists..yeah, right...

          Car sales people

          Y2K programmers

          :D

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