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Finnish ISP Forced To Block the Pirate Bay

Posted by Unknown on from the if-you-can't-beat-them-ban-them dept.

Apotekaren writes "The Finnish ISP Elisa has been forced to block several domains leading to the infamous torrent-tracker site The Pirate Bay following a court case initiated by IFPI Finland... The Helsinki District Court ruled in favor of IFPI Finland in October, but the ISP resisted implementing the block until today because of the terms of the block not being specific enough. The ISP is calling the block 'temporary' and is appealing the court decision." Analysis from Torrent Freak shows that the block is probably easily circumvented.

9 of 168 comments (clear)

  1. Not only domains by DCTech · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The block was for IP's too, so you can't just change your DNS. You have to use some proxy service, or VPN, which makes it harder. And they also blocked one of EFF Finland sites as collateral damage.

    Just as a side note, before all the usual "haha it's already circumvented" comments come in. They don't care about that, they just want to make it harder for casual people to pirate. That's what DRM does, too. It's why all those "DRM can always be cracked, somehow" comments are stupid too. The main purpose is to make it harder for casual people.

    1. Re:Not only domains by Vanderhoth · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The problem is when "the casual user" buys something with a DRM that prevents them from using the product, maliciously disables their machine and they can't get any help from customer support.

      That's when "The casual" user learns to circumvent DRM by pirating everything before wasting their money to get the shaft after the fact. At least that was my story.

    2. Re:Not only domains by LostCluster · · Score: 3, Interesting

      DRM has already failed... the vendor-lock-in situations with iTunes and PlaysForSure and lack of compatibility with MP3-only devices brought it down. Now, almost all music stores are Watermarked MP3... you can copy it on your own devices all you want, you just can't offer it to others without your watermark that can be traced back to you being spread.

    3. Re:Not only domains by Kjella · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Sure, but those convoluted circumvention techniques tend to get wrapped into simple point and click tools for the masses. Say for example small service for Swedes to run that'll proxy just TPB and share the proxy as a "seed" on a torrent and a Firefox plugin to pick a proxy at random to use just for that site. Let them try banning all dynamic IP ranges in Sweden, that'll go over well... just as an example.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    4. Re:Not only domains by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I bought a DVD with DRM and it would play in my DVD player but not on my computer so I returned it as defective. I'll keep doing that until they figure out that it costs them more to add drm than not.

  2. And so it begins... by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm frankly surprised that you can still type in thepiratebay.org in the U.S. and still get anything other than "Sorry, this site has been blocked by your ISP due to legal requirements." Hell, I'm surprised it's still even legal to show it in a search engine. Years ago, I expected the blocking to start much sooner. It's still coming though. Of course, when it is blocked, this will just set off an arms race where proxy sites and government/ISP's battle it out for a while, possibly leading as far as proxy blocking and maybe even deep packet inspection. But it's nice to have it without having to hack around a block, at least for now.

    And it's particularly sad to see a country like Finland, traditionally pretty strong on free speech and consumer rights, sink to this level. Of course, the Finnish reputation for has become somewhat tarnished in recent years, with the unfortunate prosecution of Jussi Halla-aho, and the government's increasing deference to the EU and U.S. on intellectual property issues.

    --
    SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    1. Re:And so it begins... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I fully expect the "Internet" to be a footnote in history when the people got out of their little box for a few years and were quickly re-contained. Unless a technology comes along to allow worldwide communication without a governable infrastructure, we're screwed.

    2. Re:And so it begins... by mcgrew · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If everyone had a wifi router forwarding packets, the only people who would need corporate infrastructure would be those way out in the sticks. The genie is out of the bottle, and he'll be hard to put back in. One presient sci-fi writer saw the internet coming and the "dangers" of uncensored communication and information retrieval. A Logic Named Joe, 1946. Its text is on the internet, but Google seems to only point to where you can buy this public domain work (copyright expired, not renewed).

      --
      Free Martian Whores!
  3. ...and a non-Pirate Bay related site got censored. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    One of the blocked addresses is http://piraattilahti.fi/ (piratebay.fi if you translate it directly). This address, however, does not direct to Pirate Bay. It directs to the same address as effi.org. This is the website of EFF's Finnish cousin, Electronic Frontier Finland.

    If this hasn't changed recently, you can only ask how incompetent were the people who implemented the censorship here.