Facebook Cuts Off Pirate Bay Links

narramissic writes "Citing legal reasons, Facebook has ended its brief relationship with The Pirate Bay. The Pirate Bay added a 'Share on Facebook' button around two weeks ago to its site that allowed its users to post links to small information files on Facebook that are used to download audio, video, etc. via BitTorrent. Facebook is now blocking those 'bookmarklets' as well as any links from The Pirate Bay, said Peter Sunde, of The Pirate Bay. Sunde said he received an e-mail from Facebook justifying the action because of the legal proceedings against Sunde and three others. The men are awaiting return of a verdict on April 17 from a trial that concluded early last month in Stockholm. They are charged with helping to make available material under copyright."

Comments

They can do that?

[BabyDuckHat]

But they can't get rid of all the crap quizzes? I call shenanigans.

Re:They can do that?

[CarpetShark]

But they can't get rid of all the crap quizzes? I call shenanigans.

Indeed.

I also think it should be illegal to discriminate against people/organisations based on law suits that haven't yet concluded. That whole innocent until proven guilty thing, you know? Not that most courts' conclusions have any bearing on the ethical reality of a situation, of course.

Re:They can do that?

[dontmakemethink]

Ethical sympathy FAIL

Sounds fair

[houghi]

Our company blocks facebook. :-D

And what if they used tinyurl.com or any other that does the same?

Re:They haven't ended the relationship...

[cellurl]

Thats like banning craigslist because its nasty.
I encourage people to put legitimate stuff on TPB.
I put good church sermons (occasionally) on TPB.
(I would provide a link, but TPB is blocked at work...)

The rise of redirect links

[davidwr]

I predict a sudden increase in "redirect" links like TinyURL and the like and in "human-readable" links that can't be clicked on and can't be automatically scanned for but which humans have no trouble turning into a real link.

What about Google?

[kimvette]

Let's compare:

Piratebay:

  * links to public domain content
  * links to legal "copyrighted content"
  * links to unauthorised "copyrighted content"
  * links to open source content
  * links to creative commons-licensed content

Google:

  * links to public domain content
  * links to legal "copyrighted content"
  * links to unauthorised "copyrighted content"
  * links to open source content
  * links to creative commons-licensed content

Yahoo:

  * links to public domain content
  * links to legal "copyrighted content"
  * links to unauthorised "copyrighted content"
  * links to open source content
  * links to creative commons-licensed content

So, facebook ought to ban both Google and Yahoo.

As an aside: if you draw, photograph, type, speak & record, or write it, it's copyrighted automatically so "linking to copyrighted material" is a BS cop-out, not to mention an attempt at social engineering to get people to accept that sharing "copyrighted material" is bad. It's not. In fact many forms of copying is legal - AND COMPENSATED. Ever download an .mp3 and burn it to an audio CD disk? Years ago, did you ever record radio to an audiocassette? Do you ever store ANYTHING on DAT? If so, the RIAA has been compensated the price they agreed to for those works, because those media have levies associated with them.

Re:What about Google?

[stuckinarut]

Years ago, did you ever record radio to an audiocassette? Do you ever store ANYTHING on DAT? If so, the RIAA has been compensated the price they agreed to for those works, because those media have levies associated with them.

Home Taping was apparently killing music back in the days of the vinyl LP 20 years ago. I distinctly remember the skull and cross bones tape logo. I'm not sure the RIAA has already been compensated except by the licence fee the broadcasters pay. Canada has a blank media tax aimed at compensating the RIAA for CDs burnt but I doubt they think it's sufficient.

Both these mechanisms for copying are limited by the ammount of blank media you can obtain and the time involved in creating copies with the media.

What scares the beejeebus out of the RIAA is that bits and bytes have an almost limitless supply for everyone aside from the almost negligble initial cost (approx £70 for 1 terrabyte == 1000's albums, way more than you can listen to in a whole years listening). The other thing is our fat internet connections can fill this limitless storage while we sleep with the products they used to be able to strictly control the supply of.

Once they wake up and realise the days of skimming a fat profit out the music industry by simply playing the middle man are over and get back to promoting artists and recouping costs by finding good acts that sell out big tours and flog merchandise that can't easily be replicated, say T-Shirts the better.

The genie is already out the bottle and isn't going back in however much they keep their corporate heads in the sand.

Re:What about Google?

[Quato]

I bet Google and Yahoo would have the PR issues of The Pirate Bay if they put a big-ass pirate flag on their site, and the majority of their search engine content was designed to point you to illegal or grey-legal content.

You can't compare Yahoo and Google to The Pirate Bay. They are not even in the same ballpark. Yahoo and Google are trying to run a search engine, and it would be impossible to filter every link they encounter for the possibility of linking illegal content.

Simply, the Pirate Bay's focus is to provide links to large files. A good portion of those large files probably shouldn't be distributed without a license. Google and Yahoo by lack of exclusion to link to copyrighted content. The Pirate Bay was designed to link to copyrighted content, and does it by inclusion. As evidence... the big-ass pirate flag.

Re:What about Google?

[Kjella]

Yes, and a postal worker and a drug mule is doing the same - delivering packages.

I think the weakest point in your comparison is that google pretty much indexes everything it comes across. The Pirate Bay got icons with "Trusted" or "VIP", they got moderators that remove viruses/spam/fake torrents/whatever and there's quite clearly certain criteria people are being reviewed against. They also manually create indexes for tv shows that clearly are being shared without consent from the copyright holder. The replies they've given to threatning letters is more of the same, it's not copyright infringing until a court says so.

Imagine if a drug mule used the same defense: "I did not know it was drugs, no DEA agent ever told me it was drugs so I continued to assume it was a legal package no matter what."

I think they might still get away with it because the standard of accessory is pretty high, and there's no real laws against creating an arena for copyright infringement or anything like that. But pretending at TPB is a random selection of torrents is optimistic at best. And that's not covering the tracker, which is like a middleman that never does anything directly illegal himself but puts everyone in touch with everyone else. Fortunately for them, Sweden don't have as many conspiracy charges as the US does.

Re:What about Google?

[kimvette]

TPB is not based in the US. US law does not apply. The laws which apply are the laws in the country it resides, just as Russian law drives allofmp3/mp3sparks, not US law.

It may not be legal for us to set up such a service in the US and encourage posting of links to torrents of "pirated" content, but TPB is not in the US.

When it is legal there, why SHOULD they be concerned about the "what if we were operating in the USA" scenario?

Facebook + random courts - decision

[Anonymous Coward]

So Facebook recognizes the courts of Europe? What about Iranian judges? What if they contradict each other? Notice I referred only to activity before a judge. I can't say that Facebook recognizes random legal decisions because the case is still under way. There is no conviction which Facebook is using as a basis for their action. Who got a traffic ticket this morning? Has Facebook blocked you because you're involved with an officer of the court?

Re:slashdot topics these days

[drinkypoo]

Surely there must be something going on in the wide world that is both topical to Slashdot and not related to file sharing or global warming?

Perhaps you should submit some of those stories, and perhaps visit the Firehose and vote up some of the kind of stories you want to see, and vote down some of the things you don't?

Draw the line?

[uffe_nordholm]

Granted, Facebook is owned (I assume) by some company, group of companies, individual or group of individuals, and as owner of Facebook it/he/she/they can decide what rules apply to material posted on Facebook. For the rest of us, we are left with two mutually exclusive choices: live by the rules, or leave Facebook.

However, I wonder how far they are willing to take this. If providing a link to a link to (possibly) 'illegal'(*) material is against FB rules, is a link to a link to a link OK? Or what about a link to a link to a link to a link to a link to a link to a link to a link to a link?

For rest assured, no matter where FB draws the line, it can be gotten around. And _will_ be gotten around!

And what about posting links to Google search result pages, with searches like "mp3 Madonna filetype:torrent"? If they are to treat all equally, even a link like that should be blocked.





* I write 'illegal', knowing full well that it is most likely not the material itself that is illegal, but making it accessible to others without the copyright owner's permission.

Re:And the funny thing is...

[slyn]

That might have something to do with the fact that you don't give anything but your IP address to TPB, whereas you are giving Facebook your email address, your location, your interests (activities, tv, movies, books, music, games, sexual preference, religion, etc.), your friends, your relationships, your plans (events), your schools, your jobs, your birthday, and a plethora of pictures of yourself.

TPB has barely any information to "be dicks" with. Facebook on the other hand probably knows more about the real you than your parents do.

As far as I'm concerned, if you put your information on the web, you sacrifice your privacy, period. For me the benefits of having my cell number and email address in a place where any of my friends can see it, as well as a medium to easily communicate, share, and plan publicly outweighs the potential danger of Facebook using or selling my information.

Re:They haven't ended the relationship...

[mmclean]

And just how does a non-resolving reverse IP prevent detection by a Deep Packet inspection toy? I know networking isn't my IT areas of expertise, but maybe I'm missing something here ? Yeah, didn't think so. I award scientus one "you fail at teh inner tubes".

I must be missing something

[Presto Vivace]

But Pirate Bay seems to take the view that because something is technically possible it is acceptable, or at least no one can stop us. I just don't have much sympathy for that point of view. I watched their agit-prop Steal this Film and it seems to me that Pirate Bay is unable to distinguish between Free Speech and Free Beer.

Re:I must be missing something

[anonieuweling]

Local Law is what you are missing.
Your context is non-Swedish.

Re:As if they didn't know

[mrbene]

Not only did Facebook take two weeks to act, but when they did choose to act they acted with the presumption of guilt.

Bravo.

Brilliant

[DesScorp]

(I would provide a link, but TPB is blocked at work...)

try putting in your host file

83.140.176.200 thepiratebay.org

or setting you DNS server setting to 4.2.2.3

and then going to https://thepiratebay.org/

Yeah, have him violate his workplace policy so he can get to the Pirate Bay.

He deserves whatever he gets if he actually listens to you.

Re:And the funny thing is...

[xaxa]

Then you had better avoid downloading any "keygens" from TPB.

You don't download any keygens from TPB. TPB just tells you where to look.