The Pirate Bay Successfully Appeals Italian Block

An anonymous reader writes "Last month, The Pirate Bay was blocked in Italy. The Swedish tracker appealed the ruling, and have emerged victorious. When they will be back online in Italy is not known, as news of this development is rather fresh."

Comments

Good for them

[BorgAssimilator]

Hopefully this will discourage other nations / organizations from blocking sites like that, but only time will tell, and I don't have my hopes up.

Re:Good for them

[daveime]

Yes but the chinese tend not to "pirate" so much, rather they make a duplicate of something so it "looks and feels" almost the same as the original.

The missus bought a Chinese "Nokia 99i", believe it or not ... picked it up in some shady market for about 100 bucks ... it's got pretty much all the functionality of the real N95, plus a TV tuner built in. Of course, it also has that chinese chip that burns out 1 millisecond AFTER the warranty has expired, but as this one didn't even come with a warranty, let alone a box, even switching it on tends to be a game of Russian Roulette these days.

Oh and like everything else made in China these days, it has a port of MAME with all the old favorites like 1942, Donkey Kong etc ... I swear to god, they do that with every electronic device these days. Want a DVD player ? comes with games ... want a TV ? comes with games ... want a bloody toaster ? comes with games.

So why exactly would they want to access the Pirate Bay ... they'll simply roll their own copy instead.

Arrr it be slashed and it be dotted arrr

[davidwr]

Aye matey but for certain it shall live again in the morn.

Encouraging censorship

[T0wner]

Ignoring the legal arguments for once. Do we really want governments to censor what the public sees or does all in the name of protection?

You don't have to go there if you don't agree with it. You don't have to break the laws of your country if you choose not too. Do most people abide by laws because they're worried about the punishments or because they believe in them? There will always be some who don't, in a democracy it is a majority which matters.

However in a democracy surely it is important that the people have a choice? In this case the judge has decided it is not for him to decide.

Re:Encouraging censorship

[PunkOfLinux]

Interesting point - that laws are able to be broken, and, as such, people can follow them based on belief, fear of punishment, or not at all.

And, yes, it is the citizen's responsibility to make their own decisions.

Re:Encouraging censorship

[Kjella]

Ignoring the legal arguments for once. Do we really want governments to censor what the public sees or does all in the name of protection?

Ok, let me try to flamebait this one a little. Do you want one world law? Do you want a world where one country reject certain laws or ignore the law, then everyone around the world can do as well through the Internet? While it might sound like a nice ultra-liberalist ideal it's closer to anarchy than anything else. Do you want a world where the parliaments and courts just throw up their hands and say "Sure, we can outlaw this in OUR country, but it won't stop anyone from getting it from Europe/Asia/Whereever"? Nor would I want the least common denominator with only the content all countries can agree on. In many ways we are one people through the Internet but we don't have one set of laws nor do I think there should one. In some fashion it still ought to be so that my nation makes laws for my people, and your nation makes laws for your people. Leaving such a huge loophole as the Internet is the same as not enforcing the law which means it in practise will cease to be law. The majority wouldn't want to break the law in the first place, but if it's not enforced or punished then it won't stop anybody from breaking the law.

Re:Encouraging censorship

[Trogre]

That sounds like a nice idea, but I'll still keep the locks on my house, thanks.

Re:Encouraging censorship

[Artifakt]

I'm going to try and present a few opposite arguments, recognizing that if yours are flamebait, so are mine, perhaps more so.
      Do we want a world where all crimes are punished so drastically that any potential criminal would have to be insane to risk even a very slight chance of getting caught? While it might sound like a solid conservative's law and order ideal, it's closer to totalitarianism than anything else. Do you want a world where deterrence is so all important that voluntary compliance with the law can never be enough?
      It's a fact that most laws work as well as they do, because many people, usually a substantial majority, agree with them. Where a law is widely considered unfair, it seems to either be changed, or to spawn new laws that exist only to prop up the old ones, so that achieving compliance soon takes whole new volumes of laws. (Witness all the additional drug related laws, setting mandatory minimums, disallowing plea bargaining, making related activities count as conspiracies or criminalizing paraphenalia and not just the drugs themselves. What do all these additional laws exist for, except the majority doesn't really agree with the basic drug laws in the first place, or at the least, is lukewarm in its agreement and a substantial minority disagrees quite strongly.)

Re:I don't see an article

[JackieBrown]

http://www.slyck.com/story1771_The_Pirate_Bay_Sucessfully_Appeals_Italian_Block

Communication barrier

[sayfawa]

Was the hearing 6 days ago? 'Cause that would've given the Pirate Bay an unfair advantage.

Re:Why block it?

[meringuoid]

The problem people have with it is they take COMMERCIAL stuff that costs millions to make, and reproduce it freely, without paying the creators a penny, and pocket the ad revenue.

TPB do no such thing. They provide a venue for their users to take material (commercial, GPL, Creative Commons, public domain, they don't care at all) and reproduce it freely. All you'll find on the TPB website itself is trackers, and a means to search them. TPB tell you where to get free copies of commercial material, but do not themselves provide that material.

It's just the same as what Napster used to do. US courts decided that was illegal. Swedish courts disagree.

As for the ad revenue, I doubt there's too much of that. Remember, their audience consists chiefly of pirates; do you think these people have any qualms about using Adblock Plus?