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High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

bbc.co.uk

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Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#71

Post by rmc »

drucken wrote: post #21

Next up: ban Google (including its torrentable Custom Search Engine), Bing and all other search engines listing torrents? Or just ban all search engines except those sanctioned by BPI/MPAA etc.? The irony is that at this point The Pirate Bay is just a collection of merely 90MB of magnet links which can be downloaded anywhere on the Internet in the blink of an eye.

The Pirate Bay is just a collection of merely 90MB of magnet links which can be downloaded anywhere on the Internet in the blink of an eye.

Someone made a torrent of the torrents on the Pirate Bay (at one point).

Here's the magnet link:

  magnet:?xt=urn:btih:938802790a385c49307f34cca4c30f80b03df59c&dn=The+whole+Pirate+Bay+magnet+archive&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.de%3A80

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#72

Post by ticks »

citricsquid wrote: post #43
corin_ wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is not with censorship, it's with what they are censoring. Very few people here would take issue with this court order if it was about a site that exclusively hosted child porn. Therefore yes, the context of "is what TBP does illegal?" To extend your (frankly poor) metaphor, he wouldn't be a drug dealer if all he did was hold up a sign pointing you towards your nearest drug dealers and he never actually gav…

Child pornography: illegal Copyright infringement: illegal censoring child porn websites: right, censoring copyright infringement website: wrong. Not sure I understand the difference? Either you're for censorship of websites, or you're against it, you can't pick and choose.

I'm pretty sure the former is criminal (i.e. illegal), whereas the latter is unlawful, hence why businesses have to chase copyright infringement - rather than the authorities doing it for them. The authorities only step in when it becomes a commercial operation or the activities are linked to other crimes.

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#73

Post by fredley »

salvadors wrote: post #58
fredley wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linking is not a crime.

That's a nice slogan, but it doesn't match the UK law. Linking can be a crime.

Either it is or it isn't. If it is, a lot of search engines are in big trouble. Google links to almost every piece of illegal content on the web.

You also have to think carefully about what a link is. Is a magnet link - essentially a hash of the content itself - a link? If so is posting the checksum of a piece of software copyright violation?

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#74

Post by fromhet »

PiracyApologist wrote: post #57

From the guidelines: "What to Submit On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity." Clearly the community has spoken in submitting and then voting this up to be the #1 story on HN. However, I'm having a hard time finding what is intellectually g…

What can be done about it? It's so easy to upvote and comment "this won't stop piracy". The only way I can think is to have an enormous human capcha that is having to repeat the guidelines before being allowed to vote, but that would of course be ridiculous.

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#75

Post by jsnell »

rmc wrote: post #71
drucken wrote: post #21

Next up: ban Google (including its torrentable Custom Search Engine), Bing and all other search engines listing torrents? Or just ban all search engines except those sanctioned by BPI/MPAA etc.? The irony is that at this point The Pirate Bay is just a collection of merely 90MB of magnet links which can be downloaded anywhere on the Internet in the blink of an eye.

The Pirate Bay is just a collection of merely 90MB of magnet links which can be downloaded anywhere on the Internet in the blink of an eye. Someone made a torrent of the torrents on the Pirate Bay (at one point). Here's the magnet link: magnet:?xt=urn:btih:938802790a385c49307f34cca4c30f80b03df59c&dn=The+whole+Pirate+Bay+magnet+archive&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%…

Could you edit your comment to break that long line into smaller chunks? It's breaking the page layout.

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#76

Post by VMG »

drucken wrote: post #44
VMG wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're a private company For-Profit?

"The Pirate Bay was started by the swedish anti copyright organization Piratbyrån in the late 2003, but in October 2004 it separated became run by dedicated individuals. In 2006 the site changed it's ownership yet again. Today the site is run by an organisation rather than individuals, though as a non-profit . The organisation is registered in the Seychelles and can be contacted using the contact form." https://thepi…

So we just have to trust them that it is non-profit since they don't actually want to be transparent about their income and expenses.

I don't buy it.

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#77

Post by corin_ »

citricsquid wrote: post #43
corin_ wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is not with censorship, it's with what they are censoring. Very few people here would take issue with this court order if it was about a site that exclusively hosted child porn. Therefore yes, the context of "is what TBP does illegal?" To extend your (frankly poor) metaphor, he wouldn't be a drug dealer if all he did was hold up a sign pointing you towards your nearest drug dealers and he never actually gav…

Child pornography: illegal Copyright infringement: illegal censoring child porn websites: right, censoring copyright infringement website: wrong. Not sure I understand the difference? Either you're for censorship of websites, or you're against it, you can't pick and choose.

First off, I'd argue that creating an open space for people to share downloads (that aren't hosted on this open space) is not illegal.

Second, even if by law it is, legality isn't binary. Both murder and stealing a bottle of milk from a shop are illegal, you wouldn't say "either you're for life inprisonment or you're against it, you can't pick and choose" would you? Not only can we pick and chose, our legal systems do pick and chose, and they always have done.

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#78

Post by viraptor »

drucken wrote: post #37
dafunnie wrote: post #25

Didn't they try to block porn sites last year? David Cameron ostensibly proclaimed that 'porn sites corrupt the British nation' or something in that vein. The UK is beginning to get a tad too draconian for the 21st century.

I think they are still trying. There is an on-going tabloid newspaper campaign where they are trying to force the ISPs and politicians (especially the opposition) to adopt or commit to an "opt-in" for porn on Internet connections. That is, the default would be required that ISPs take on the cost and legal culpability to block porn.

If it's the same as what Vodafone does with their content control, then let me assure you it's completely broken. With the filter turned on, I can access any porn site I tried, but some articles - I couldn't.

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#79

Post by JumpCrisscross »

drucken wrote: post #68
alexchamberlain wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government and the judiciary are independent.

Only in the sense of execution/implementation. In the UK system, without a written/arms-length constitution, the judiciary is manipulated or beholden to any newly created laws of the land, especially in civil matters. If there are no protections in law, especially rushed laws, there is little the judiciary can do to defend or even argue one interest versus another. This is surprisingly common, particularly in matters…

I'm reading this as the UK doesn't have a system of judicial review, i.e. the courts being able to strike down legislation as being non-compliant with some prior and of presumably higher authority law. Is this correct?

Re: High Court: The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs

#80

Post by ekianjo »

paulhauggis wrote: post #48
VMG wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They're a private company For-Profit?

Although they are technically a non-profit, the people that run it are probably getting nice salaries off of the hard work of others.

The same can be said for any merchant: selling the work of others without creating anything yourself. If this makes you scream, you should be very angry at supermarkets.
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