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Although this is all true, the IWF works in "close partnership" with the Home Office and it was unofficially communicated to those same ISPs that legislation would be brought in to make them filter if they didn't do so voluntarily. At present ISPs are not actually required to use Cleanfeed, but all the big ones do and the fact that smaller independent ISPs can opt out of it has been raised in the Lords as a legal loophole in need of closing. At some point they will try and actually do this, given the continuing compulsory censorship trend shown by Cameron's perfectly legal porn / any political views the state doesn't like filter, and the worst part is it will probably go through with widespread public apathy or even support.

revk.www.me.uk/2013/07/active-choice.html

Only the larger ISPs are blocking it, it seems.

The ISP I currently use (AAISP) are certainly not blocking it (see http://revk.www.me.uk/2012/05/blocking-pirate-bay.html for a blog entry oin the subject from one of the ISP's senior people), and no doubt many of the smaller ISPs are not either.

The reason for this is that it would have been too costly and time-consuming to bring an action against every last ISP in the UK. It sufficed to go after the six main ones because they hold 94% of the UK internet users, which I assume they felt was 'good enough'.

From the first line of the judgement:

Dramatico Entertainment Ltd v British Sky Broadcasting Ltd [2012] EWHC 268 (Ch)

Judgment

Arnold J.:
Introduction

1 The claimants are record companies claiming on their own behalf and in a representative capacity on behalf of the other members of BPI (British Recorded Music Industry) Ltd (“BPI”) and Phonographic Performance Ltd (“PPL”). The Defendants are the six main retail internet service providers (“ISPs”). Between them they have a fixed line market share of some 94 per cent of UK internet users. By this claim the claimants seek an injunction against the defendants pursuant to s.97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (“the 1988 Act”), which implements art.8(3) of European Parliament and Council Directive 2001/29/EC of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society (“the Information Societ

Only the larger ISPs are blocking it, it seems.

The ISP I currently use (AAISP) are certainly not blocking it (see http://revk.www.me.uk/2012/05/blocking-pirate-bay.html for a blog entry oin the subject from one of the ISP's senior people), and no doubt many of the smaller ISPs are not either.

As (IIRC) TPB no longer runs a tracker at all and merely holds metafiles listing other trackers and/or distributed tracker links, this menas that all you need to get around the block is to use a friend's connection by proxy to get the .torrent file: once you have that you can dwonload an upload with merry abandon. This means that the block is pretty much pointless: if someone knew enough to know TPB exists and has the small amount of knowledge needed to get and use a bittorrent client, then they are going to know how (or have a contact who can help them) to access TBP by proxy in this way. Or, for that matter, just find another source for torrent metafiles and tracker facilities.

Is TPB really that relevant any more anyway? I've not been to any such site in many a moon so I might be completely out of touch, but I was under the impression that people were moving more towards private trackers and even ignoring that there are many small public trackers and aggregators available as alternatives. If my understanding is right and TBP is just a name that everyone knows rather than a site many people use, then this has as little effect as taking down napster: by the time it was taken down most people had other sources lined up anyway.

Off topic: while I'm linking to RevK, you might find his attitude and actions towards telemarketting amusing: http://revk.www.me.uk/2010/07/what-moron.html

Only the larger ISPs are blocking it, it seems.

The ISP I currently use (AAISP) are certainly not blocking it (see http://revk.www.me.uk/2012/05/blocking-pirate-bay.html for a blog entry oin the subject from one of the ISP's senior people), and no doubt many of the smaller ISPs are not either.

As (IIRC) TPB no longer runs a tracker at all and merely holds metafiles listing other trackers and/or distributed tracker links, this menas that all you need to get around the block is to use a friend's connection by proxy to get the .torrent file: once you have that you can dwonload an upload with merry abandon. This means that the block is pretty much pointless: if someone knew enough to know TPB exists and has the small amount of knowledge needed to get and use a bittorrent client, then they are going to know how (or have a contact who can help them) to access TBP by proxy in this way. Or, for that matter, just find another source for torrent metafiles and tracker facilities.

Is TPB really that relevant any more anyway? I've not been to any such site in many a moon so I might be completely out of touch, but I was under the impression that people were moving more towards private trackers and even ignoring that there are many small public trackers and aggregators available as alternatives. If my understanding is right and TBP is just a name that everyone knows rather than a site many people use, then this has as little effect as taking down napster: by the time it was taken down most people had other sources lined up anyway.

Off topic: while I'm linking to RevK, you might find his attitude and actions towards telemarketting amusing: http://revk.www.me.uk/2010/07/what-moron.html

As highlighted by RevK from AAISP in a recent blog post on the stupidity of the blocking

I can reveal the secret high-tech method for accessing newzbin2 and by-passing the recent block on the site on BT residential lines.
Its top secret and highly technical, so don't tell anyone...
Instead of typing http://newzbin.com/ you type https://newzbin.com/
Yes, that is typing an extra s in the right place.

Not even... See this.

http://revk.www.me.uk/2011/11/secret-to-accessing-newzbin2-from-bt.html

• http://www.langston.com/Fun_People/1999/1999ALL.html
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=858I61zKkLQ
• http://www.davehitt.com/jan02/tmmmda.html

I suppose at some point this will become an arms race - that is, telemarketers will be openly hostile and completely annoy every single person they call. I'll enjoy it!

but mostly they will be cost additive rather than cost saving or even cost neutral compared to the mark up on a manufactured items

On full manufactured typical items that are readily available and have competition. But what about when you want to replace/fix something that is simple, but costs a lot due to the manufacturer being the only one that supplies them?
An example? How about a bit of plastic on a BMW bumper that saves replacing the entire bumper? (which you can only get from BMW or, if you are very lucky, a scrap yard)

Two Speed Internet
I would have thought it would be difficult in the UK as there is more competition. If Fred Bloggs finds his ISP slows down BBC iPlayer then he can change ISP pretty easily. What's the problem?

My ISP already has native IPv6 support as well as tunneled and a 6-to-4 gateway. Head of ISP suggested "Internet HD" as a branding scheme to increase general IPv6 take-up the other day! For reference my IPv4 vs IPv6 traffic ratio is about 20:1, which isn't as low as I expected.

Here's a clip of one of the phone calls

MP3 Audio

Taken from: RevK's rants

Here's a clip of one of the phone calls

MP3 Audio

Taken from: RevK's rants