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British Pirate Party Asked To Pull Pirate Bay Proxy

judgecorp writes "The British Pirate Party has been asked by the music business organisation BPI to pull the plug on the Pirate Bay proxy it has been running. The Pirate Party provides a way round the court-ordered ban on ISPs providing connections to the file-sharing site, The Pirate Bay. So far the Pirate Party says the proxy is a 'legitimate route' to the site, but the BPI says the Pirate Bay is 'not above the law.'"

18 of 80 comments (clear)

  1. clearly they're not above the law by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    only the bpi and the riaa are

    1. Re:clearly they're not above the law by Luckyo · · Score: 2

      No, not above the law. Just buying the law to do their bidding. It's far worse then just being above the law.

  2. Response on Behalf of UK Pirate Party: by CanHasDIY · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Dear BPI:

    We refer you to the response given in Arkell v. Pressdram.

    Good day.

    --
    An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    1. Re:Response on Behalf of UK Pirate Party: by fsterman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Shortcut,

      Arkell's lawyers wrote a letter which concluded: "His attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of your reply." The magazine's response was, in full: "We acknowledge your letter of 29th April referring to Mr J. Arkell. We note that Mr Arkell's attitude to damages will be governed by the nature of our reply and would therefore be grateful if you would inform us what his attitude to damages would be, were he to learn that the nature of our reply is as follows: fuck off."

      --
      Is there anything better than clicking through Microsoft ads on Slashdot?
  3. Re:Just wait by ThatsMyNick · · Score: 2, Insightful

    While I dont defend infringement, I sure do support TPB. It is a valid service for people willing to share files. Taking it down is absolutely pointless.

  4. Re:Just wait by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I cannot wait for everyone here to come out and defend stealing. Oh sorry, it is infringement

    Actually, that depends on local jurisdiction.

    --
    Ezekiel 23:20
  5. Court order by nospam007 · · Score: 4, Informative

    As they specifically state themselves, the court order is for ISPs and obviously the Pirate Party ain't one.

  6. Rejoice, then! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    TPB DOES host links to non pirated material!

    Despite which, even if it were, the links are not copyrighted nor copyrightable.

  7. Re:Just wait by ThatsMyNick · · Score: 5, Informative

    I have found plenty of legitimate torrents on TPB. A fellow musician even uses it to distribute his work (his model is to depend on donations and live performances). I am not sure why you find it different from Megaupload. Both are used to mass distribute files (well, the most common use atleast)

  8. Re:Just wait by mcgrew · · Score: 2

    Interesting, could you elaborate? In what jurisdiction is copyright infringement called "theft"? And is there a jurisdiction where theft is called "murder"?

    Oh, and if you MUST feed the trolls, please don't quote them. He's at -1 for a reason, you know.

  9. Re:Just wait by SuricouRaven · · Score: 2

    The 'absolutly pointless' holds though. If that mirror goes down, ten more await. If TPB closes down forever, the exodus of users shall fuel the rise of those already waiting in the wings. There is no way to enforce copyright on the internet as it is, and I would rather see the entire entertainment industry destroyed than sacrifice the freedom and equality the internet provides to all.

  10. Pointless by magic+maverick+ · · Score: 5, Informative

    I visited Belgium recently. I wanted to go to the Pirate Bay, but it was blocked. I did a quick search for Pirate Bay mirrors and came up with a lot of hits. Including a script that is specifically for mirroring the site http://unblockedpiratebay.com/external/ which you can include on your own website.

    So, basically, the whole thing is pointless. Block one site, and mirrors will spring up. (Same as what happened with Wikileaks.)

    PS https://duckduckgo.com/html/?q=pirate+bay+mirror.

    --
    HELP MY ACCOUNT HAS BEEN HACKED BY AN ILLIBERAL ART STUDENT SET TO DESTROY THE INTERWEBZ!
  11. Re:Just wait by drkstr1 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Here's the dirty little secret Big Media doesn't want you to know; Big Media does not care one bit about pirates or piracy.

    Almost every independent study shows the direct results of piracy (EG. the "lost sale") is negligible to the bottom line, and have sometimes even shown to improve revenues for lesser known artists. Big Media did not get to the position they are in by being stupid. What really scares Big Media is a free and open internet.

    What most people fail to realize is that the profitability of the media empire has nothing to do with media sales. When mainstream media is owned by 5 conglomerates, they get to decide what's popular and what's not, what issues are talked about in the news, what is and what is not "popular opinion," and they even get to decide who we may choose as our president. This is not some tin-foil-hat wearing conspiracy, you can go to school for this, and learn from the masters of marketing how to sway public opinion. Big Media is not afraid of lost media sales from piracy, they are afraid that if alternative distribution channels of media exist, they will lose their control over popular opinion, and thus the source of their power.

    To this affront on our freedoms, there can only be one response: Death to Big Media!

    --
    Fanboy Status: Apache Flex, C#, Eclipse, KDE, Pirate Party, Ron Paul, Slackware, Windows 7
  12. theft of our natural rights by bzipitidoo · · Score: 4, Informative

    The only theft going on here is the theft of our natural rights to share, and our right to speech. Speech might cause unauthorized sharing to occur.

    Sharing of knowledge is a huge social good. We got to the top of the animal kingdom not only through sheer intelligence, but also by harnessing our great intelligence through cooperation. Sharing of knowledge is a vital part of the cooperation that has enabled us to work together. Over the past few decades, these greedy fools have tried to make themselves the gatekeepers through which all sharing passes. They can't see or don't care that if they somehow succeeded, they would slow progress to nothing, and hurt themselves as well as the rest of us. All they see is money. They would deny us the methods we used to reach the top, and which we still very badly need to solve the problems we still face. All the money in the world does you no good if you need something that doesn't exist. Things like cures for AIDS and cancer, knowledge of an approaching meteor of a size that killed the dinosaurs and the means to avert it, tools to deal with climate change and ocean acidification, advances enabling us to colonize Mars, flying cars, and who knows what else. And most of all, establishing and maintaining a tradition of openness and honesty so that real crimes can't be hidden.

    Fortunately for us all, they can't stop the sharing of knowledge. They can outlaw it, demonize it, viciously victimize a few unfortunates to try to terrorize us all, but not stop it. Sharing should be seen as an act of good and kindness like charitable donations, but even better, and far more common. Instead, these squatters on intellectual "properties" have suckered a lot of people into thinking of knowledge as deserving of the same ownership and handling as real, physical property. Getting people to use the very term, "property", and to make the association with "theft", was huge. It's sad how many people are thoroughly indoctrinated with the holiness of ownership, and get extremely moralistic over piracy, defending these villains and their propaganda. But the edifice is cracking. I find the successes of the Pirate Party most encouraging. No matter how this latest issue plays out, it will be good publicity. Keep it up, PP!

    --
    Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
  13. Re:Just wait by grcumb · · Score: 2

    Copyright isn't worth dick-all if society will not, as a whole, respect it.

    I hope you realise you're advancing both sides of the argument when you state this...?

    I'm a writer/photographer/software developer who also consults in IT policy. Copyright, copying and rights of use of creative works on the internet are not only part and parcel of my professional life, they're also things that affect me very directly. But even with my strong vested interest in copyright protections, I cannot deny the reality of the situation: People want to share, and doing so over digital media makes sharing easier than at any other point in human history.

    Your statement above supports your argument only if you consider that there's some inherent, innate value in copyright; that the right of a creator to be rewarded is axiomatic. I would willingly support you if you were arguing for the inherent, innate right of creators to decide whether or not to share their work, but their ability to control how widely the work is shared, and with whom, are utterly dependent on the goodwill of society at large. If society sees no value in copyright as previously understood, then we creators are left with little choice. We can either accommodate ourselves to society's wishes (albeit perhaps arguing for change), or we can stand on the shore, foolishly aping Canute[*], and order the tide to withdraw.

    P.S. I'm not going to touch your statement that additional measures are necessary when 'copyright will not suffice', because you haven't even made the case for your interpretation of copyright yet.

    ------
    [*] Canute meant his actions to be a cautionary tale, not a how-to.

    --
    Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
  14. Re:Just wait by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 2

    Interesting. Who?

    Not trolling, genuinely curious.

    --
    Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
  15. Re:Hoarding Knowledge by DanielRavenNest · · Score: 2

    Hoarding knowledge is effectively brain damage for civilization. The goal should be to have all of it available to everyone, everywhere, instantly, at the lowest possible cost. I am talking about real knowledge, like science and engineering. If the entertainment business becomes collateral damage in freeing the world's knowledge, too bad, they can go whine with the former slave owners. Enslaving ideas to the control of one person is as wrong as enslaving people.

  16. The media cartel are scum by MrL0G1C · · Score: 3, Insightful
    --
    Waterfox - a Firefox fork with legacy extension support, security updates and better privacy by default.