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The Promo Bay Blocked By UK ISPs
hypnosec writes "The Pirate Bay's artist promotion platform (the Promo Bay), despite being perfectly legal, is being blocked by several UK Internet service providers including BT, and Virgin Media. The Promo Bay was launched this week as a promotion platform for content creators like filmmakers and musicians enabling them to showcase their talent and work to thousands of people across the web. Even though the idea is novel, The Promo Bay has somehow found itself on a block list alongside the Pirate Bay."
If you were confused by the Napster saga, the big media companies only care about squashing competition. Napster helped their bottom line. ANd taking it down hurt their bottom line. It wasn't about infringement, anymore than the radio is about infringement.
It's about control.
If this succeeds, they're unnecessary. They are the gate keepers. An artist needs them. But they don't need artists. They can take any dancer or model who can't sing and turn them into a pop star.
http://thepromobay.co.uk/ http://promobay.org/ - The URL in the OP. Looks like 4 (featured) artists. No torrent for anything. Weird.
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If that isn't a government abusing its power and control over its peoples then I don't know what is. Here are artists who are perfectly fine with sharing their creations for free and it's being blocked.
lol. you're naive. Looks like you never actually read an ISP contract. The only thing guaranteed in it is that you pay the ISP. Everything else is at the discretion of the ISP.
What's new ...
It works perfectly fine here on virgin media?
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
It seems like anything that even remotely challenges today's established copyright dogma is the modern day equivalent of blasphemy that deserves absolute censorship so the old fashioned doctrine of intellectual property can be allowed to continue, unchallenged by more futuristic ideas.
Works on Orange (EE, now), too, although thepiratebay.org is blocked
AC is correct.
Read the fine print - and then ask a GOOD lawyer what they think about it.
Because what the contract 'does' depends on who pays for lawyers to decide that - in court.
ISP's especially NOW will/can/do just about whatever they want to non-corporate clientele.
Uhh... http://thepromobay.co.uk/?loadurl=/browse/200/0/7 It's essentially a TPB proxy. No surprise here.
What exactly is the rationale in blocking the Promo Bay? It's not and never has been the Pirate Bay. Different servers. Different owners. No complaints of copyright infringement. No cases, lawsuits or petitions to the court.
What is the process that has gone on behind the scenes to block it accross almost all of the UK's ISPs? Where is the public oversight of this process? Who met, talked and how was the decision arrived at?
Where is the scrutiny over decisions to censor the internet in a (supposedly) free and democratic country?
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Sorry, BT has blocked their call.
I can access it just fine using BT
AC
UK ISPs would block any effort by the Pirate Bay, even if they launched the Puppy Bay. Its about the source, not the content. The Promo Bay is essentially a PR tool for the Pirate Bay, and blocking that ability is as strategically important to Big Content (and their allies) as blocking actual sharing.
This sets a rather curious precedent, I wonder how much further they might take it?
Is probably what it is. If it can't be taxed then it's illegal.
Probably because they can't read. It looks like it says "the porno bay".
lol. you're naive. Looks like you never actually read an ISP contract. The only thing guaranteed in it is that you pay the ISP. Everything else is at the discretion of the ISP.
Only in the US. The UK and rest of the EU have sane consumer protection laws.
But then, I'm using one of the small (semi) independent ISPs.
The page you're looking for has been blocked. We're complying with a court order that means access to this website has to be blocked to protect against copyright infringement. So basically it's a court order. An ISP issued with a court order can't really do anything except obey it, so blame the courts not the ISPs. I'm on Be Broadband which is a subsidiary of 02.
This doesn't mean you can simply call them up and say "I think you're breaching my contract; I'm cancelling effective immediately. Kthxbye." and they'll let you out of it just like that. You can expect to be told in no uncertain terms you're in contract and if you cease payment, you'll be hounded thoroughly. Only way you'll get away from that hounding is likely to be a court appearance.
This isn't necessarily the end of the world - we have a perfectly serviceable small claims system designed specifically for such things and the whole point of it is that lawyers are kept out of it as far as possible. But there's no guarantee you'll win - in a case like this, there's a few factors I can think of at stake:
1. The major ISPs are already under court order to block the Pirate Bay. Your contract with them almost certainly states something along the lines of "this contract is not void if we have to block a part of our service because a judge tells us to" (and even if it didn't, nobody - neither BT nor their customer - can expect them to provide a service that they've been explicitly banned from providing).
2. Your ISP will no doubt say "This was a simple administrative error. Our customer here made no effort to establish what the problem was, nor did they give us an opportunity to resolve it. In actual fact, by the time his next payment was due we'd already resolved it".
Did you mean "KTHXBAI" ?
Works here (in Glasgow) with Virgin.
Umm...no offense, but we win another civil war, take them back, and history repeats itself. The US government is too stupid, southern states or not. And it's not just the southern states btw.
Now working on TalkTalk though earlier today it came up as blocked
As a BT customer, I can access the Promo Bay. It is not (currently) being blocked.
The Promo Bay isn't the same as Pirate Bay so they should unblock it
Mendacem Memorem Esse Oportet
... I'm in London and getting through to the site fine.
This pretty much proves that the MPAA/RIAA is not so much about "piracy" as about maintaining control over an industry.
There no longer is a need for big record labels, and very soon there will no longer be a need for the big Hollywood conglomerates. If you look at many of the biggest blockbuster movies, once you get past the first screen for "Dreamworks" or "Universal" or "Fox" you find that the actual work (including the funding) was done independently for the most part.
For now, the big labels and studios are like aging crime bosses that still get their cut from everything that happens in their respective industries. But their day is coming to an end.
The only question now is whether the most successful indie labels and film production houses are going to try to use the same obsolete business model of consolidation or if they're sufficiently enlightened.
Either way, The Pirate Bay (and others) presents the best reason why they need to change how they do business.
Same thing with games: This week, Ubisoft released Far Cry 3 in Europe (it doesn't come out until Dec 4 in the US). Their "uplay" DRM server immediately crashed, making the game unplayable for all the people who legally bought the game, even for the single-player campaign. Meanwhile, those who downloaded the RELOADED release from Pirate Bay had no problem playing their game, whether they were in the EU or US. And still they don't get the hint. Instead of realizing that their DRM was nothing but punishment for their paying customers, Ubisoft probably came away thinking, "We need more better DRM!@!".
You are welcome on my lawn.
What are you talking about? I've used many ISPs and I've never had to commit to a term contract. In fact with every one them I can at any time call them and unsubscribe from their service effective immediately and they'll only charge me up to that day on a pro-rated basis. One can enter in a long-term agreement with them in exchange for a free laptop or a package deal, but that's optional and mostly foolish IMO.
Also every civilized country has laws about how often, what times of day, and in what manner creditors can contact you. Creditors simply cannot "hound" you, at least not legally. And you can always say "I dispute these charges, refuse to pay, don't contact me anymore," and the creditor's only recourse after that is to file a suit.
So if they're blocking it might be pure DNS since I use OpenDNS.
I can see it and it has a link to a Pirate Bay proxy. Seems like the story is bullshit.
It's not blocked on Plusnet, a BT subsiduary
In the US, if a service provider makes a material change to their promised services, you are allowed out of it with no strings until you make another payment. In the case of providers who take automatic payments, I've yet to see one without wording that says something like you have 30 days from the time of the change to terminate services. I do know for certain that all four of the major cellular carriers have such wording (Verizon gives you 60 days after you tell them that you have an issue with the change and they can't or won't address your concerns.)
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
I'm on Virgin media in London, UK and I can see the promo site just fine
Come on, basic checking please...
hahah, you aren't even thinking this through. The US is more than north & south now. Think in more than one dimension.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
Any ISP can block any traffic for any reason.. We best get used to it, it will only get worse.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
It's blocked on O2.
My contract is up on 19th January. I will vote with my feet. I'll switch to Andrews & Arnold who publicly state that they don't censor, filter and track. It's a whopping £4 a month more.
Ditto. Virgin Media (Ex. Telwest/Blueyonder). No problems at all.
Many US States have sane consumer protection laws, too.
We also have mostly the same Common Law protections as the UK which can cover basic contract issues.
$ host promobay.org
promobay.org has address 62.239.4.146
$ host thepiratebay.org
thepiratebay.org has address 62.239.4.146
BT gives me "Error - site blocked" for both TPB and PromoBay.org which means they've hijacked the IP address itself. What I will have to see next is if anyone goes and tell the court that BT is doing more blocking than they've been ordered. They've been ordered to block TBP, but not anything else that may be hosted at the same IP address.
My conclusion: TPB is playing one of their games. Popcorn may be recommended for this one if the ball gets rolling.
Question for religious people: where do unrepentant masochists go when they die?
In Oregon you can almost always sever an ongoing contract via a letter from an attorney, at least if you have returned all the equipment they own. That is the trick, you return the equipment unilaterally, refuse not to leave it in their office, and then the lawyer can issue the statement that because you are no longer receiving anything of value from the other party, and don't have anything of theirs on loan, there is not a basis for the existence of a contract.
The only time that won't work is something like a car lease where they've invested all of the off-the-lot depreciation in you. The ISP hasn't done anything of the sort.
Which is why you don't cancel the contract - you ask if you can, and when you can't you just keep finding mysterious faults which cost them more than £25/month or whatever in engineers fees. They soon get the message and you're free of contract.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
/slap /slap
in the UK, internet is internet. Filtered content is not internet, it's subscription channeling.If you pay for internet YOU GET INTERNET or the provider is in breach of contract. End of story. Ive had this out with Virgin Media, when they capped my broadband (I was on an uncapped tariff). I told them, they give me what I paid for already or I cancel the contract right there and then, and fuck their early termination clause. They pulled the same shit two months later and I shitcanned them.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Again, someone is getting confused between "the USA" and "the Sane"
In most countries, you can 'cancel' your ISP any time you damn well please, you're not locked into a 'contract'.
Here's MY contract. "Yes, I'm using your services this month. Whether I'll still be using them next month is entirely up to me, and entirely dependant on whether you're still required and you're providing satisfactory service."
The history of common law is an interesting subject. The laws are a humungous set of books held in a library, no human is anywhere near old enough to have to read all of it. A lot of the early stuff is basically field notes from traveling judges who went from village to village making it up as they went (a primitive and often violent version of Judge Judy).
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I don't know if UK sees its role as that of 'promoting Progress of Science and useful Arts' but whatever it is they are doing, they clearly HURTING promotion of useful Arts in this case.
So just because you hate science, you want the UK to stop promoting it's progress. Why are you trying to obfuscate your very obvious goal?
To support your point with an anecdote, I ended up paying an ISP for a year for a service they didn't deliver (specifically, a DSL signal to my modem).
I called the helpdesk. Several times. Finally, they did a test. Took a couple of seconds. "The signal is not getting through." Yes, that's what I've been telling you for the past couple of days.
Then they told me they would send a technician. They had already sent one before, but, apparently, that one hadn't done his job. I agreed on a date and a time of day, took half a day off from work, and waited until it was clear the technician wasn't going to show up. No call, either.
Fed up, I called them and told them I was through with them and wanted to cancel the subscription. They told me I needed to tell them in writing. I argued with them for a while (because this was not stated elsewhere), but eventually did send them a letter. No response. Meanwhile, they kept deducting money from my bank account.
At some point, I decided to call my bank and tell them that the ISP was no longer authorized to deduct money from my account. They told me that they couldn't do that, but I could reverse the automatic transactions if I called them within 4 days of the transaction happening. Normally, that's 20 days, but in this case there was a special deal.
I reversed one of the payments. That got the ISP's attention. They send a collector after me. I told the collector what had happened, and that I wasn't willing to pay for a service that wasn't being delivered. They told me that they had heard similar stories from other customers of the ISP's, and told me that they would pass on the message, but suggested that I pay the outstanding amount as a sign of good faith. Figuring I could always do the same trick next month if it didn't work, I did that.
Eventually, I got a response. The ISP said that they had credited one month of the subscription fee to make up for one month of service not delivered. I know for a fact that it was at least two months that it didn't work. After that, my connection with a different ISP came online and I hadn't looked at the broken one anymore.
Figuring this wasn't going anywhere, I decided to talk to a lawyer. Turns out there is free legal help available. They advised me to, first of all, file a complaint with the comission that handles these things. If that didn't work, we could go to court, and we would win, but there would be (heavily discounted) fees and hassle.
The way this comission works is that some cases are free, and some require a small fee. Mine, fortunately, was in the free category. So I filed the complaint and submitted all the paperwork. A few weeks later, I got a response, asking me to pay the required fee. Wait, what? Earlier you told me that there was no fee! Since the year of my contract was always up, I decided this had cost me enough of my time, and just stopped putting energy into it.
And this is how Telfort in the Netherlands got a year's worth of subscription fees, without living up to their side of the agreement. Never again will they get a cent from me.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
they deserve something horrible like a shit mailed to them.
In Belgium I took a slightly different route: I went to a central store of theirs every other day for a while, to complain that the connection didn't work. After a few visits the store employees started recognizing me, and looked positively embarrased every time I showed up.
Result: It only took Belgacom ca 1 month to actually fix a connection problem, which I understand to be quite fast for them.
Actually you can get out of your contract if they fail to provide a usable service. Recently quite a lot of people were let out of their O2 mobile phone contracts because of a dispute over a buried cable that lead them to have no data service for over a month. O2 could have fought them in court but they would have lost, so rather than take the bad press and waste money they just went with what the end result would inevitably have been.
In the case of an ISP if they ever blocked something you were using you would have a case to leaving. It doesn't matter that they were forced to by a court order, they made the service unusable for you.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It's time to block BT and Virgin Media.
"Only in the US. The UK and rest of the EU have sane consumer protection laws."
What was that you were saying again? Something about how I, in the US, can get to Promobay, and you, UK/EU resident, with your supposedly superior consumer protection laws, cannot? Lot of good those supposedly better consumer protection laws are doing you, given that apparently your UK/EU telco is filtering your internet connection, and my US telco isn't.
Among other things, I can tell you're ignorant on the subject of consumer protection in the US because you speak of it like it's a federal concept, when it is largely regulated at the state level. One of the things that I find common among UK/EU residents is that they arrogantly think they know everything about the US, and rarely know much of anything.
Please help metamoderate.
Creditors simply cannot "hound" you, at least not legally. And you can always say "I dispute these charges, refuse to pay, don't contact me anymore," and the creditor's only recourse after that is to file a suit.
You're right. They can't do it legally, but they certainly do it. I've been hounded by many collection agencies, over the years, for a debit I do not owe, I never owed, and which would have been years beyond the statute of limitations by now if I ever had.
Here's what they do: One collection agency buys the account, perhaps for a penny or two on the dollar, uses overseas callers to try to collect for a year. When I tell them I want them to cease and desist they tell me I need to contact them by mail to tell them that, and then they hang up without giving me a mailing address. Their entire intent is to trick me into affirming a debt I don't owe, so then they can sue me to collect it. After a year, sometimes more, sometimes less, they sell it to another agency for the same few pennies on the dollar.
Sure I can talk to them and try to trick them into getting the information I need to stop them from calling me, but if I do, I risk the chance of accidentally affirming the debt (they record all calls), and if I succeed they simply sell the account to another agency.
For years now I've been telling them that "Mr. X isn't available; may I take a message", hoping to get a good address or phone number for them (the Caller ID is always phoney, in spite of the laws against that). Now I'm trying something else: "This is an answering service, Mr. X is never at this number." The first time I tried it, the idiot (sorry, no other way to discribe him) spent a few minutes asking me things like "does he live with you" but appeared to finally get the message. However, the next day I got another call. However this time the lady who called said "Okay, I'll remove your number from our system." Let's wait a week and see if she did.