The Pirate Bay On Track To Be Banned In the UK?

redletterdave writes with this excerpt from the International Business Times about the fate of the Pirate Bay in the UK: "Swedish filesharing website The Pirate Bay may soon be blocked in the UK after a London judge ruled that the site breaches copyright laws on a large scale, and that both the platform and its users illegally share copyrighted material like movies and music. In addition to finding legal fault with The Pirate Bay and its users, the British Phonographic Industry also wants all British ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay in the UK."

Comments

Can we just ban it?

[ka9dgx]

Let's ban child phonography.... cut off their customer base, and drive the bastards out of business.

Re:Can we just ban it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Child pornography should be legal, just as snuff films should be legal. Free speech is free speech. If the video is evidence of a crime, persecute the offenders in the video who perpetrated the crime. Video or pictures of crimes being committed should be legal, including child pornography. You're probably thinking that there will be more videos of 60-year-old-men diddling three-year-olds. This is unlikely to be the case, as this kind of pornography is incredibly rare because there really aren't that many sick fucks who will do that (I could be wrong).

You will, however, be able to see a 16-year-old girl willingly take video of herself masturbating. And two fourteen-year-olds having sex on video (and it was their idea). If the argument is that legalized video will spurn more coercion of children - coercion of children for sex with adults is already illegal (although the age of consent is too high, IMO).

The only reason child pornography is illegal is the puritanical mindset of the United States (I imagine some of Europe made it illegal to appease the U.S.). Child pornography was common in the '70s and nobody batted an eye. If you have video of a thirteen year old masturbating alone from 1975, don't you think that person (who would be 51 now) has either forgotten about it or it doesn't bother them and they don't mind others watching it? Yes, in extreme cases (child rape) the victims hate the video that exists of it, but that shouldn't make it illegal. Watching a video of a child being molested by an adult may be ethically and morally questionable or wrong, but it should not be crime that warrants the current outrageously extreme punishment (20-100 years in prison, sexual offender's watchlist for life, banned from the Internet for life).

Re:Can we just ban it?

[Lemmy Caution]

The problem is that a local market (i.e., in the US) might create supply elsewhere (i.e., Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia). I'm afraid that I'd support criminalizing the market as well as the production, because the supply will just move to wherever enforcement is non-existent otherwise. It's a formula for outsourcing child-rape.

I do distinguish between pedophilia and attraction to teens. I don't think it's appropriate to treat pictures of naked teenagers in the same way as videos of toddlers being raped. In the case of the latter, I think even viewing/possessing them should be criminalized in very strong terms.

Re:Can we just ban it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, child pornography doesn't follow the same rules as other media.

You see, if you pirate other media you harm the content creator but if you pirate child pornography you support the content creator.
At least that is what I have been told.

It's kind of scary

[cshark]

that the UK is exerting this kind of power over their local internet lines and providers.

Re:It's kind of scary

[lightknight]

Goose, golden eggs, killing of said goose to get the gold inside, followed by the realization that there is no gold inside.

Two other thoughts:

1.) It's rare to see a government so openly declaring economic warfare on its own populace.
2.) I'm surprised that the Financial District, which employs and contributes over 10% of the population and taxes, respectively, hasn't ordered a hit on the people behind this. In order to make good (profitable) trades, fast & accurate information is required (every millisecond counts, and you are competing with people in other countries); in so far as this will be putting up a few new walls between them and the rest of the world, it's not a 'good' law, I would assume, from their vantage point. With the amount of influence they have in the UK, they should easily be able to stop this problem (before it snowballs).

I will take super-economic sabotage for $500.

Re:It's kind of scary

[Cant use a slash wtf]

Normally I would find this sort of thing scary.
But, let's look at it through our un-biased glasses for a second.
A judge made a ruling that may lead to certain companies pursuing court orders to have the site blocked by telcos within Britain.
Now, this is not even the government censoring Britain's internet. These are companies who (obviously) have a vested interest in having the site blocked as the site exists almost solely for the purpose of illegally distributing copyrighted material (let's be completely honest here).

This is not the government trying to mute anyone's opinions.
This is not the government trying to censor what you are allowed to see.

I know people will probably claim "But it could be X, Y or Z". It is not. This is a judge making what is IMO a just and fair ruling that may or may not end up in private companies making an attempt to have a certain site, whose profits mostly come from distributing copyrighted material, blocked within Britain.

This is not as big as people are making it out to be and I'm not particularly scared (for now).

Re:It's kind of scary

[AmiMoJo]

Well it is The Register and this isn't the first time they have predicted this kind of thing. Even extremist web sites preaching hate and containing bomb making information doesn't get censored via Cleanfeed for the most part, and the authorities are probably unwilling to use it that way. Blocking such sites would make people find ways around the block and then they would have no way of monitoring them so easily.

Blocking TBP would push encryption and privacy into the public conciousness and millions more people would start caring about it. It would be a disaster for Big Brother.

Re:It's kind of scary

[Anonymous Coward]

How so? I'm not [insert minority here] so it has no affect on me personally. A tiny percentage of the population deal with [thing the minority group do]. They take on an inflated representation because of [thing the minority group do] but honestly do they represent 0.01% of the actual population. Sure they affect you adversely but the average person won't notice unless they are specifically after [thing the minority group do]. Just trying to put it into perspective.

Later...

Oh shit! They're trying to ban [thing I do]! HOW DARE THEY!

Here comes Tor!

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, we need a "Streisand Effect" term for what happens when legislation merely prompts sites to use the encrypted areas of the internet.

1984

[Anonymous Coward]

1984. Thank you.

Old news, Pirate Bay.

[Anonymous Coward]

Tribler is the future of these things, and isn't really blockable.

The problem with the suit of armor - invented (yes, partly) as a response to the broadsword - is that it spurred the development of the rapier and epee.

Defense... offense... meet developers.

Like a ratchet

[7-Vodka]

You know what's funny about the prevailing systems of government in this era? They're all about writing new laws, making new things illegal, regulating more and more of their citizen's lives and centralizing more and more power in the hands of a VERY few.

It never goes the other way. Ever.

How often do over reaching laws get repealed? How often does government say "hey we don't need to regulate this realm anymore because circumstances have changed"?
How often have you seen governments de-centralize things in order to make them more responsive to the needs of the citizens they serve?

How often does government shrink or even stop growing at exponential rates? How often have they become less involved when it was needed?

In fact, most governments call decreases in projected increases as "cuts".

If next year something happens that causes the government to no longer need (by their justification) to control the internet, you think they will cede control?

If you're not with Ron Paul and the Freedom movement, you're part of the problem.

Re:Like a ratchet

[evilviper]

How often do over reaching laws get repealed? How often does government say "hey we don't need to regulate this realm anymore because circumstances have changed"? How often have you seen governments de-centralize things in order to make them more responsive to the needs of the citizens they serve?

All of the above happens ALL THE TIME. Deregulation and privitization were big buzzwords a few years back. Deregulation of the electric utility in California led to blackouts and Enron fraud. Systematic deregulation of the banking and stock markets led to the recession we're currently in. It's funny, Alan Greenspan was a die-hard libertarian his entire life, then after several years of him writing the rules, everything crashed, and he denounced libertarianism, the philosophy he was so dedicated to, and yet people like yourself are still cheering it on, in spit of all reality.

You have to employ magical thinking to be a libertarian. Last election, Ron Paul was refused entry into the Fox presidential candidate debate. He went to make a scene, but they did not recant. When confronted by this obvious case where Fox's freedom allowed them to exclude him, a clear example where regulation is absolutely necessary, he just mumbles something about, Oh, maybe if they had even LESS REGULATION STILL, they might have made a better decision. You have to be absolutely irrational to buy into the hand-waving false promises of libertarianism.

Libertarianism is a cult. Don't drink the Coolaide.

Re:Like a ratchet

[Anne Thwacks]

since they never are able to get rid of their wealthy elite..

You evidently do not live in the UK (or maybe do not read beyond the headlines)

We have driven the legitimate wealthy overseas by excessive taxes. Only those who have an illegal income or effective tax scam remain, so we are governed by criminals.

Re:Up next on Copyright cat & mouse...

[Squiddie]

I'm pretty sure I heard a bird singing a copyrighted song. They should ban those too.

Really?

[xenobyte]

The Swedish authorities already raided The Pirate Bay and found nothing, zip, zitch, zero infringing files on their servers. So how can it breach any copyright laws?

Sure, it facilitates file sharing and those files shared may be copyrighted... but it plays no larger role than for instance roads do in various other crimes. I mean, a road is used to facilitate almost all crimes, either as the crime scene itself or as a means of getting there or escaping afterwards. Sure, roads have legitimate uses but given that almost all crimes involve them, they do play an instrumental role.

So... if roads are not put on trial for their involvement in all those other crimes (they're just passive means, but they're there), why persecute The Pirate Bay for copyright infringement as they're also just passive means. The Pirate Bay is simply a portal, nothing more. There's no content, no hashes, no trackers. All content resides elsewhere. They have no access to hashes of the complete files shared and also have no reference hashes to verify against in order to eliminate copyrighted content, so in essence they want to ban the principle of file sharing just because you may be sharing something copyrighted.

The conclusion for the courts: Censorship for no other purpose than to quench the concept of file sharing. Possibly infringing files are not transferred through The Pirate Bay in any way and yet it must be banned?

I'll never understand it..

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the hell do authorities have such a boner for the Pirate Bay?

The pirate bay is on the news every other day, while all the other trackers get completely ignored.

Better trackers, which are way, way better than TPB in most cases.

What's the story?