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Pirate Bay, IsoHunt Blocked In India
New submitter unmole writes "It seems that India's Department of Telecom has instructed ISPs to block popular torrent trackers like the Pirate Bay and IsoHunt. Visitors now see a page (Screenshot) informing them that 'This site has been blocked as per instructions from Department of Telecom (DOT),' with no additional details. The Department of Telecom has not made any public announcement to this effect. This comes months after an Indian court gave the green signal for prosecuting social networking sites."
Tried it just now, both sites works perfectly fine. Probably a problem with the ISP.
This has been made after countless amount of pressure from the US. I don't think there would be any reason for India to do it otherwise - they are shooting themselves in the leg by not allowing people to get free content (yes, by violating copyright). In the long run the country would be much better and richer if they gained foothold in technology and knowledge by any means necessary. Hell, this is how US become to be what they are now - by blatantly ignoring European copyrights. Of course, US doesn't want to allow that so they can stay in power.
Given that the GDP of India in 2011 was $1389, compared with $48,387 for the USA, I really don't think sales of CD's and DVD's are going to sky-rocket after blocking torrent sites.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
IP address of thepiratebay.se is 194.71.107.15 IP address of thepiratebay.org is 194.71.107.50 IP address of isohunt.com is 208.95.173.130
This is not true, or at least wildly inaccurate. The main Indian Government-owned ISP, BSNL, has not blocked any of these websites. Many of the private ISP's haven't either. There is one private ISP -- Reliance Infocomm -- which is owned by the Reliance ADA Group, which happens to also have considerable interests in content generation (they produce bollywood movies, and also are major financial backers to Spielberg's Dreamworks SKG). They are known to block torrent/video sharing sites during prominent movie releases.
Reliance Media has an upcoming Movie release scheduled in 2 weeks.
This happens every time just before a new movie release. It'll be back to normal after that. The few other ISPs are probably going through Reliance. None of the other large ISPs have done this.
Its just to reduce the chance of a leak before the release, which has happened a few times in the past and is at times disastrous for the movie as it gets reviewed before opening day. Then if its good it gets downloaded a lot, while if its bad there's are less viewers turning up in theaters.
The block is being implemented by Reliance because it is releasing a movie on Friday
Think of it this way: If Warner Brothers had an ISP as well, and they blocked filesharing sites for 2-3 days before and after a movie is released by them, and they blame it on the govt. since the govt. gave them the permission to do so
One country blocks PB, and a lot follow. It's like they can't think by themselves so they need others to make way for their stupid decisions, so they are encouraged to censor and butch the world in the name of "piracy".
It's like my country that started a CISPA-like law before the US did, and then the US did, infallibly, after a few weeks. Best thing. We got the highest unemployment rate in Europe, with numbers that are ridiculous. Yet, they worry about piracy instead.
I bet India's mid/low-class suffering is also ignored in behalf of "entertainment" as well (when was the last time those companies managed to entertain me, I don't know). Entertainment makes us happier (at times) and gives us things to talk about. But it's definitely not what matters in the big picture. I'd rather be able to feed myself than to watch a new Hollywood hit, or play a fucking EA game. At what point in time we gave extreme priority to Big Media so they have the power to actually affect our freedom? Because people (in suits) spewing out movies and music and videogames should not have this kind of power. They should only need to entertain us. Yet, they command more than governments.
Unfortunately entertainment in various forms has become the 'opiate' of the masses the world over. I would attribute this to the lack of meaningful employment of the vast majority. People simply don't get to do what makes them excited or passionate, or they never even get a chance to discover what inspires them, and get stuck in all sorts of mind-numbingly boring jobs, with the result that sextetainment sells like never before in history.
I don't blame them too. Often a scan of world (or local) news reads so monotonously depressing one wants to forget it all in some game/film.
Society failed (or rather the promise of a new age of enlightened living) when it's vast majority's lives aren't worth the paper to write it on.
Back on topic, these half-hearted attempts at blocking torrent-trackers will fail resoundingly given that black-market CD/DVD discs of all major films are easily available in practically every town and city for about a dollar or so each. All it will do is drive discerning users to seek other ISP (I hope.)
Sudo make me a fucking sandwich..
MAFIAA Fire!!!
A FireFox plugin to defeat blocking of PirateBay and other trackers.
It's ONLY DNS, after all... Save all your cryin' for the Queen.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."