Slashdot Mirror
Irish ISP To Block Access To Pirate Bay
flynn writes "Ireland's oldest and largest ISP will be blocking access to The Pirate Bay from September 1st, while other ISPs have rejected the request to block TPB. From the Irish Times: 'Under an out-of-court agreement with EMI Records, Sony Music, Universal Music and Warners in January, Eircom agreed to cut off customers found to be repeatedly downloading music illegally. The deal also required Eircom to cut off access to Pirate Bay if requested. Yesterday, cable TV operator UPC, which has more than 120,000 broadband subscribers, announced it would not comply with a request to block access to Pirate Bay.'"
When can we cut access to EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner?
Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
Where I'm going to get my Linux distros now?
"repeatedly downloading music illegally"
I've downloaded music via TPB's index. Repeatedly. ALL of it was music put on bittorrent by the artist/copyright holder themselves for free download -- i.e. not "illegal" at all. How do they determine whether or not bittorrent downloads are "illegal"? Or do they just blindly assume "protocol == illegal"?
I guess Ireland's oldest and largest ISP won't be a full-service ISP anymore.
We're fucked now!
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Is there any point other than to give the middle finger to their customers?
With actions like this I sure hope it doesn't remain the largest for long.
Once ISPs start regulating what they will and will not transport over their cables, they open themselves up to all kinds of lawsuits. You're willing to block piratebay.com but you didn't prevent that creep from downloading child porn? You didn't prevent that hacker from breaking into his school's records? You didn't block all kinds of other activities that are illegal?
I hate the concept of "slippery slope" but this really is exactly that. Either ISPs will start blocking anything and everything they are told is "wrong" and become de facto thought police or they'll become vulnerable to all kinds of lawsuits for failing to block "this" content given that they're willing to block "that" content.
The smart thing for them to do is just be dumb pipes. Provide access to the internet and let the people decide how to use it. If they use it illegally, let the police sort it out. Unfortunately, the various lobby groups (MIAA, RIAA, and their ilk) are probably offering up sweet deals that are financially appealing. Now. Over time, however, it will all come back to bite them in the ass. By then, however, the people who made these decisions will be rich and have moved on to other endeavours and won't care that they've ruined these companies and destroyed the integrity of the internet...
(Of course, the big joke of all this is that the internet was designed to route around problems such as this. The entire point of it was to provide a communication tool that could perform even when major disruptions occur. Not to mention, as is proven every single day, there are more people trying to break through the controls than there are trying to create them. More > fewer, always. These restrictions will only ever amount to temporary solutions, at best. It's a game of cat and mouse that they simply cannot win, ever, regardless of how hard they try.)
When 90% of the world only access the approved list (BBC, Google, iTunes etc), what the hell do they care? If it's only Linux distros you want, you're not the target market. Nobody cares what you, I, or Slashdot think.
Not flamebait, just a realist.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
What idiot keeps modding this racist trash up?
What he can't kill, he has sex on. Trent.
Does Eircom have competitors that subscribers can switch to, or is it like the "free market" United States, where many of us only have one choice for broadband access?
There are some alternatives, Magnet and Smart Telecom are the main two, the others just resell Eircom BB. That is if your in one of the cities/large towns. Most of the country has to rely on 3G with shitty signal or dial-up/ISDN. The only real reason Eircom are the largest is because to get a phone line you have to get it installed by them then switch over to another provider, lazyness plays a large roll in why people go with eircom broadband.
When 90% of the world only access the approved list (BBC, Google, iTunes etc), what the hell do they care?
Given that every poll I've seen has stated that over 50% have illegally downloaded music or video from the Internet (some putting the figure closer to 80%), I think you might be wrong there. If anything, Slashdot users, on average, are probably less likely to commit copyright infringement because a large percentage of us make a living from copyright-related activities.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
The best thing about blind censorship is that if they just equate one site with illegal downloads then it gets pretty easy for people to just keep changing sites, client software, protocols, etc. Laws that only deal with the surface symptoms of a problem never really solve anything and they actually just distract people, allowing pirates pretty much free roam.
When you buy music, make sure to check http://riaaradar.com/ to see if the album is from a company that funds the RIAA. If they do, don't buy it and stick it to them a couple dollars of lost earnings at a time.