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UK ISPs Asked To Block More File-sharing Websites
another random user writes with this news from the BBC:
"The UK's major internet service providers have been asked to block three more file-sharing websites. The BPI (British Phonographic Industry), which acts on behalf of rights holders, wants ISPs to prevent access to Fenopy, H33t and Kickass Torrents. The BPI alleges that the sites are illegally distributing music. The ISPs told the BBC they would comply with the new demand, but only if a court order is put in place. It follows a separate court order in April which saw popular file-sharing site The Pirate Bay blocked in the UK. ... The letter, which was not intended to go public, was sent to six ISPs last week, namely BT, Sky, Virgin Media, O2, EE and TalkTalk. It is understood that the BPI is hoping all three sites will be blocked before Christmas — far more quickly than the process has taken previously."
Oh, never mind; misread that.
That's Phonographic
So TPB's ban was the thin end of the wedge? What a surprise.
And I absolutely love "The letter, which was not intended to go public" - so they want ISP's to filter traffic for them without all the hassle of legal process or negative public opinion.
'Don't worry' said the trees when they saw the axe coming, 'The handle is one of us.'
Here is a precedent for censorship...boycott the fuckers, no more DVDs, CDs and cinema for me.
Fuck off, you do not hold any copyrights yourselves, therefore you are NOT LEGALLY QUALIFIED TO COMPLAIN.
Yours Sincerely,
Everybody.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
BT, Sky, Virgin Media, O2, EE and TalkTalk have just driven the final nail in Trust's casket. I've just called O2 and told them where to put their SIM contract.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Remember that time where the internet was freedom? Where one could create a website, it was subject to law, like any other act. Remember when the providers of the internet buckled under the pressure from "the powers that be". Sites could be blocked, freedom quashed, because somebody didn't like the content of a site, because somebody thought it aided in crime and law breaking, despite not breaking any laws itself.
When we start forcing ISPs to block sites, based on anything other than law, we open gates that will never be closed. One leads to more, more to many and eventually freedom on the internet will be dead.
This is the key issue we are dealing with. It is getting overlooked because "piracy is bad". We have many other questions to ask: does blocking these sites even /help/ the problem of piracy? this suggests not!
Is piracy really the problem, perhaps the intermediate companies between consumer and author's of content are to blame somewhat?
Why do we have to constantly start making much larger problems while trying to fix smaller ones. Fix the music industry, the film industry, the E-book-monolopy that Amazon is building, fix the problem at the root. Provide consumers with a modern, suitable market in which they pay the author's of content for their products, for a price that represents the true worth of that product. Allow the consumer to have freedom with that product to use it in any device, in any form. Provide a good service, that is value-for-money, and people /will/ use it. We've seen it work before
Leave the internet alone, once the gates are open the wars begin....
(This is one army, preparing arms...
The Pirate Bay blockade is pathetic - if the best they can do is a poor King Canute imitation, I'm really not worried.
What amazes me, is that there isn't a bigger outcry about 'legacy' entertainment companies abusing the law to prop up failing business models.
Given the triumph of neoliberalism since the collapse of communism, I'm surprised at how the notion of free markets is so selectively interpreted and enforced. It seems as though even if you are a clapped-out dinosaur of a company, if you're sufficiently large, you can bypass market discipline through lobbying, special pleading and black PR against one's political opponents.
This is the moral issue -- how big, corrupt, dishonest dinosaurs like much of Big Media can get away with subverting the free market, and the political system itself to make their quarterly numbers.
Plusnet are owned by BT - which is why I left them.