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The Promo Bay Blocked By UK ISPs

Posted by Unknown on from the culture-police dept.

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."

132 comments

  1. 1st post by karji · · Score: -1, Redundant

    1st post

    1. Re:1st post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      1st post

      The 1990s called and are looking for original thoughts.

    2. Re:1st post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Sorry, BT has blocked their call.

  2. If you're affected by serviscope_minor · · Score: -1

    If you're affected, cancel your contract effective immediately. But check it first: they're probably in breach of contract or guilty of false advertising for not actually providing internat if they arbitrarily block things.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
    1. Re:If you're affected by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:If you're affected by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      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.

    3. Re:If you're affected by _KiTA_ · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

    4. Re:If you're affected by jimicus · · Score: 2

      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".

    5. Re:If you're affected by nonicknameavailable · · Score: 2

      The Promo Bay isn't the same as Pirate Bay so they should unblock it

      --
      Mendacem Memorem Esse Oportet
    6. Re:If you're affected by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      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.

    7. Re:If you're affected by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 2

      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
    8. Re:If you're affected by Aighearach · · Score: 2

      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.

    9. Re:If you're affected by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      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.

    10. Re:If you're affected by History's+Coming+To · · Score: 2

      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.
    11. Re:If you're affected by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

      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.
    12. Re:If you're affected by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      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."

    13. Re:If you're affected by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      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.
    14. Re:If you're affected by inglorion_on_the_net · · Score: 1

      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.
    15. Re:If you're affected by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      they deserve something horrible like a shit mailed to them.

    16. Re:If you're affected by GNious · · Score: 2

      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.

    17. Re:If you're affected by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    18. Re:If you're affected by nobaloney · · Score: 1

      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.

  3. This has been the plan all along. by hubang · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:This has been the plan all along. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yup, you can make them stars, but you can't make them artists.

    2. Re:This has been the plan all along. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

      He just said that.

    3. Re:This has been the plan all along. by brit74 · · Score: 0

      Big companies care about profits, not controlling you (as much as your conspiratorial mind might like you to believe). You say that Napster helped music companies. Oh really? Napster was released midway through 1999, so most people didn't have Napster in 1999, but it was building momentum. Do you know the peak year for music sales? Well, it was going up through the 1990s, and peaked in 1999. It's been a steady downhill ever since. The average consumer in 2009 in the US spent 30% as much money buying music as they did in 1999. It's a bloodbath in the music industry. If piracy helped the music industries, we'd be seeing record-breaking sales numbers, not the lowest sales numbers in 50 years.
      http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4d5ea2acccd1d54e7c030000/music-industry.jpg

    4. Re:This has been the plan all along. by epSos-de · · Score: 1

      BT and Virgin Media are actually in a legal mess now. They can be forced to pay legal fines up to a billion, if they continue blocking competitors. You do not need a business model, if the competition is as stupid as Microsoft was in the 90's. EU governments are constantly looking for big companies to pay their wages. The European governments are in debt, so they find the most wealthy legal offenders and let them pay the fines. It is happening in Spain already. The Chinese mafia in there was kept loose until the Government decided to extract some money. Now the money is extracted and the top bosses are free again. You should have seen the pale faces on TV after they lost the hard washed monis.

      --
      ~ Best man at your service.
    5. Re:This has been the plan all along. by gizmonic · · Score: 2

      Yes, the ability to purchase the one good song on an album and not having to pay $15.99 for the one song you like and the other 9-12 pieces of crap they called music had absolutely no impact on that. Neither did the fact that the economy took a huge downturn for a lot of industries when the .com bubble burst. Then get hit with 9-11, a recession, and the housing crash. That couldn't have a single thing to do with it. Yeah, it was ALL piracy's fault. Damn Napster.

      --
      WWJD?
      JWRTFM!
    6. Re:This has been the plan all along. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Corporations do want to control what their consumers can and cannot do, they want to control their competition. Corporations are just a higher form of organization but plagued by all the mental disorders regular people need to cope and learn to deal with all their lives. No one is alone in this, and corporations are not nurtured and brought up with a sane mentality so institutions tend to be far more brutal and totalitarian then your non-conspiratorial mind might think.

      The people were talking about have so much power and influence you will never know them, unless you are one or work directly for one. If you do I doubt you would be posting here. Unless your just trying to fuel the ignorance of what intellectual property is and what the RIAA, MPAA and others all stand for. There are many front organizations for just a few crazy psychopaths. No one sane would tell another what they can and cannot do with their music (beyond turn it down).

      When are you going to walk over to your neighboor and tell him to stop sharing with his daughter? Do you really want to live in a world were its criminal to be creative and self sufficient? Because you do. No one is permitted to be a big success without the perimission of the industry. This is the case in more then just music. Radio, the transmission industry, TV, even adverts. Sure small fries are allowed to live, but get big and you will go down sure enough. This is why Lennin died, that and his political speach, but he was bucking the system.

    7. Re:This has been the plan all along. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The record and movie industry, does not want any possible talent to go off and do there own thing. Really laughable if one entity is not trying to control you another will come in and do it.

    8. Re:This has been the plan all along. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, please.

      Big companies care about profits, not controlling you (as much as your conspiratorial mind might like you to believe).

      Grow up, will you?

      Of course they care about profits, that's the "end" of the equation. However, control is the "means" and what they care about more than anything else. Without control, their profits are gone. Do you understand now? There's nothing magical about this. And there's certainly no conspiracy involved.

    9. Re:This has been the plan all along. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The compact disc killed music sales, not file sharing.
      What the media failed to tell you, is that 80% of first time music buyers, back when cassette was the medium for music, purchased "Cassingles" or 1-2 song releases, of new artists...
      You could buy a cassingle for less than a dollar (2 songs for less than a dollar, imagine that today) and you could "try out" a new artist, before you went and blew a whopping $8 on a full album. And those were great times for the music industry, because cassettes cost nearly nothing to them to produce.
      The CD that you purchase from the music store or from WalMart or wherever you buy your music from, costs them more to produce... (Mastering, stamping, labeling)
      The CD that you burn is much less expensive than the CD that was stamped from a master, so in order to keep profits up per sale, they have to increase the price of the sale. (WHOLESALE, we havent even gotten into the markup from several exchenges before they reach the retail stores). So to break even they could sell them around $8 retail, or $4 wholesale, but it will never meet the bottom line expenses of the cassette, ($.90).
      And with the economic downturn from the last 4 years, people have even less money to spend on music, because of the other expenses they have to meet... But MPAA / RIAA would like to blame it on P2P or other file sharing mechanisms, because they cant even read their own books...

      The music industry buried itself, expecting us, the consumers to fill the coffers they emptied to sue the consumers that buy their music... and to produce consumables that cost more than the music they stamp to it.

  4. hopefully... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1

    ...the southern american states secede, their shitty racist/religious bullshit goes with them, we get into another civil war with them, we win, and we never have to deal with retards who say HERP DURP NO GAYS NO ON MY RELIGIOUS LAND.........OR YOURS!!!!!!!!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA WAIT WHY AM I LAUGHING IM SERIOUS.

    yeah those retards.

    1. Re:hopefully... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      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.

    2. Re:hopefully... by tibman · · Score: 1

      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
  5. hum..... by fred911 · · Score: 1

    http://thepromobay.co.uk/ http://promobay.org/ - The URL in the OP. Looks like 4 (featured) artists. No torrent for anything. Weird.

    --
    09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
    1. Re:hum..... by thoughtlover · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure how they're implementing the block, but there's direct IP if they're resolving domains for their customers - 108.59.2.74

      --
      No sig for you! Come back one year!
    2. Re:hum..... by MrWeelson · · Score: 3, Informative

      There are two different websites.

      http://thepromobay.co.uk/ looks to be a proxy for TPB as others have said and isn't blocked.
      http://thepromobay.org/ is blocked

    3. Re:hum..... by MrWeelson · · Score: 5, Informative

      Curses.
      The second URL should of course be http://promobay.org/

    4. Re:hum..... by hawkinspeter · · Score: 2

      I'm on Virgin Media and the first isn't blocked, despite it being a proxy for Pirate Bay, whereas the second is blocked. Looks like they've blocked the wrong one.

      --
      You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
    5. Re:hum..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Neither is blocked for me (nor is just thepiratebay.se) on Comcast

    6. Re:hum..... by brain159 · · Score: 1

      ThePromoBay.co.uk is fine but PromoBay.org is blocking on Be (O2).

      The former (.co.uk) is a proxy - see the small print "Powered by Unblock The Pirate Bay v1" in the footer.

    7. Re:hum..... by LordAndrewSama · · Score: 1

      I get 'Error - Site blocked' and I'm in Sydney.

    8. Re:hum..... by fido_dogstoyevsky · · Score: 1

      I get 'Error - Site blocked' and I'm in Sydney.

      I can see http://thepromobay.co.uk/ and http://promobay.org/ in Victoria.

      --
      It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
    9. Re:hum..... by LordAndrewSama · · Score: 0

      It's working now :S

    10. Re:hum..... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Try http://www.promobay.org/. Seems to work on Virgin for me.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  6. abuse of power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    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.

    1. Re:abuse of power by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who says it's a government? Likely it's the UK quango Internet Watch Foundation, maintainers of dodgy lists-of-badness to do with, oh, album covers depicting nude children on wikipedia, and that sort of thing.

    2. Re:abuse of power by Cederic · · Score: 1

      Unlikely, the IWF aren't responsible for blocking The Pirate Bay either.

      Given the different IP addresses for Pirate vs Promo bays, it does look as dodgy as shit. I may invest a few minutes of my time tomorrow to ask them which court order has mandated a block.

  7. Your ISP is monitoring what websites you visit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    What's new ...

    1. Re:Your ISP is monitoring what websites you visit by aliquis · · Score: 2

      The blocking?

  8. Re:hum.....If thats correct.... by djsmiley · · Score: 1

    It works perfectly fine here on virgin media?

    --
    - http://www.milkme.co.uk
  9. I hope it _is_ a mistake but ... by troll+-1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  10. Re:hum.....If thats correct.... by Gordonjcp · · Score: 1

    Works on Orange (EE, now), too, although thepiratebay.org is blocked

  11. It's a proxy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Uhh... http://thepromobay.co.uk/?loadurl=/browse/200/0/7 It's essentially a TPB proxy. No surprise here.

    1. Re:It's a proxy. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have they mixed up http://promobay.org/ and http://thepromobay.co.uk/ ?

    2. Re:It's a proxy. by Terrasque · · Score: 2

      Fancy. We're talking about http://promobay.org/ - a completely different site.

      --
      It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
  12. Conspiracy to Censor by Blue+Stone · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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
    1. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      guilty by association

    2. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or minimisation of risk. The ISPs probably just calculate that they have more to lose from a foolish judge deciding that they weren't implementing the blocking order properly than from irate customers wanting to reach the site.

    3. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe they just blocked everything matching the wildcard "*.*bay*.*"
      So I guess Michael Bay is SOL too - as is Summer Bay and Bay Of Pigs.

      Remember boys and girls: "Bay" is a dirty, dirty, nasty, filthy word.

    4. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Where is the scrutiny over decisions to censor the internet in a (supposedly) free and democratic country?

      With the voters, but they foolishly believe all the propaganda that they have no choice and have delegated their authority to the wrong people.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    5. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The moronic voters are too caught up in TERRISM and denying gays the right to marry to care about the things that are actually affecting their lives every day.

    6. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by anotherzeb · · Score: 1

      I'm successfully seeing http://thepromobay.co.uk/ on Talk Talk and can see it has a Pirate Bay search at the bottom - maybe that has something to do with it. Looks like it's proxying (German) Pirate Bay for browsing as well

      --
      Good luck sometimes arrives disguised as bad
    7. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by GuldKalle · · Score: 1

      http://promobay.org/

      --
      What?
    8. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah, I see, you were under the impression you lived in a free country, where laws and process protected the smallfolk from the power and abuse of the rich.

    9. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe they just blocked everything matching the wildcard "*.*bay*.*"

      We can only hope they include eBay in that wildcard.... Ever since ole JD took over after
      Meg Whitman left, its been going down the drain..

    10. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by GumphMaster · · Score: 1

      Guess it will be eBay next.... sounds the same, must be pirates

      --
      Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
    11. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by jez9999 · · Score: 0

      Confusingly, there seem to be two sites out there called "The Promo Bay". This one works: http://thepromobay.co.uk/ [thepromobay.co.uk]

      This one, for me, is blocked: http://promobay.org/ [promobay.org]

      The latter is the one we're talking about, I think.

      --
      == Jez ==
      Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
    12. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by brit74 · · Score: 1

      To be fair, the whole reason the PromoBay was created was to divide-and-conquer the artists. You think the PirateBay is actually on the side of the creators? Nonsense. They're doing the equivalent of a company trying to bust up a union - it's a divide-and-conquer strategy. You might think that it's the PirateBay vs the Big, Bad Music/Movie Companies, but it's actually the PirateBay vs Digital-Media creators. The big, bad companies are just one of the victims - the creators will also be the victims of the PirateBay.

    13. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Really? Artists marketing their wares w/o the traditional middle man and you wonder what the rationale is? It's money of course. Same as always. Now the rationale may not be helping you out at all, and it may even be on slightly shaky legal ground. But with enough money and lobbyists behind it that won't matter.

    14. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by icebraining · · Score: 2

      http://i2.wp.com/www.synthtopia.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/the-graph-the-music-industry-doesnt-want-you-to-see.jpg?w=640

      --
      Dilbert RSS feed
    15. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

      that is a sig waiting to happen. Thanks, AC! :D

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
    16. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by chilvence · · Score: 1

      So why are the hordes of actual pirate bay clones not blocked, and this apparently fair and legal one is?

    17. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's not you being fair. That's you being willfully incorrect. Or, to put it bluntly: You're a liar. Now, kindly, please fuck off.

    18. Re:Conspiracy to Censor by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Guilty by association.

  13. No it's not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can access it just fine using BT
    AC

  14. The Puppy Bay by ohnocitizen · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:The Puppy Bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      TPB is blocked by a court order. ISPs have no choice in the matter and several did so only under protest.

    2. Re:The Puppy Bay by Jessified · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Aw so now the UK censors speech based on the speaker, rather than the speech.

    3. Re:The Puppy Bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The UK does not have Freedom of Speech like the US does.

    4. Re:The Puppy Bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As George RR Martin said through Tirrian Lannister, censorship only shows that you fear what they have to say.

    5. Re:The Puppy Bay by amorsen · · Score: 2

      BT blocks TPB using the CleanFeed system. The CleanFeed system was designed to block child porn, and to prevent criticism based on "slippery slope" arguments, BT promised that they would shut down the system rather than allow it to be used for other purposes than blocking child porn.

      Yet here we are, BT's hands were tied by the court, and those who yelled "slippery slope" were proven right.

      It doesn't help that there is no general right to free speech in the UK except what the Universal Declaration of Human RIghts says. If UK law conflicts with the UDHR, the only recourse is to go to the European Court of Human Rights.

      --
      Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
    6. Re:The Puppy Bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The ISPs were forced to block TPB, they didn't choose to.

      Can anyone here confirm they have actually blocked this new site? It's working fine for me on Virgin and the other comments claim it's working on the other ISPs too.

    7. Re:The Puppy Bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes is does

    8. Re:The Puppy Bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      When they say "UK ISPs" they mean "two or three big ISPs that will do anything other big businesses tell them to do". These are not the ISPs you or I would choose, they're the ones with the big TV advert with movies downloading in seconds and then it says in small print "Service may not be used to download movies. Not intended to represent actual results". Or the people are all happy and smiling and everything's working but actually the DSL router they ship tends to blow up about once a day so really people would be shouting and hitting it.

      If you choose a decent little ISP you don't get TPB filtered, nor indeed is anything else filtered.

    9. Re:The Puppy Bay by jez9999 · · Score: 0

      Confusingly, there seem to be two sites out there called "The Promo Bay". This one works: http://thepromobay.co.uk/

      This one, for me, is blocked: http://promobay.org/

      --
      == Jez ==
      Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
    10. Re:The Puppy Bay by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

      yes, it does, under Common Law: if it is not specifically illegal, then it must by definition be lawful.

      The restrictions (there are many) encompass: defamation, hate speech including racism/sexism/anyotherism, incitement to violence, and affray.

      Waitasec. I think you might be right, actually. By the strictest definition of the term "freedom of speech", it has been removed by (unlawful*) Statute.

      *refer to the Parliament Act 1911, which removes the requirement of the physical Royal Seal on Acts of Parliament; since that Act came into force, the passing of Acts into Law has been the sole purview of Parliament via the House of Commons and the House of Lords (which has no hereditary Peers now since 2003, so the entire system is now completely corporatised). There is NO Royal Veto which is the basis of a Constitutional Monarchy.

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
    11. Re:The Puppy Bay by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

      I've got two different websites here... (Hutchison 3G UK, nothing is blocked through these guys)

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
    12. Re:The Puppy Bay by scared+masked+man · · Score: 0

      What is really needed is a new charter to replace the Magna Carta (what's left of it) and the Act of Settlement (which has been gutted by the fact that all the rights it guaranteed to the people were subject to limitation by parliament) to reflect the fact that now the people can't rely on parliament to protect their liberties. Three hundred years ago, Parliament was the public's best defence against a dictatorial crown and their corrupt servants, now it is the crown and the crown servants who are the public's best protection against a dictatorial parliament and their corrupt servants.

      Unfortunately, it would probably be constitutionally simpler to create a republic[1] than it would to limit parliamentary sovereignty in a constitutionally-binding way.

      [1] Although actually creating a British republic would be effectively impossible since that would mean defining the reserve powers of the president and the limits of parliament, as a party controlling the presidency and the commons would have absolutely unlimited power, whereas even without a veto power the Crown has enough powers to throw a serious spanner in the works of any home-grown Hitler (if you control the executive, the judiciary, the military, and the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster, the fact that someone else controls the legislature and supply becomes less critical, at least in the short term). The Commonwealth Realms don't have that problem because they have limited parliamentary powers and procedures for binding constitutional amendments.

    13. Re:The Puppy Bay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your comment seems very insightful, but its too technical to understand ' at least for me. Could you explain using more accessible language?

    14. Re:The Puppy Bay by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

      um...kay... to someone like you (no offence intended), the UK does have Freedom of Speech, though not in so many words. Domestic Law (Statute) places restrictions on that freedom*, which negates it. So, basically, you can say what you want where and when you want, as long as you don't offend anybody.

      *it's a false image of freedom; the Government would like you to think that you are in fact free to say what you want, but we've seen through such high profile cases as Abu Hamza (booted for preaching the Koran) and those who have suffered and continue to suffer at the hands of the Family Proceedings tribunals** that this is entirely untrue. Also refer to the Public Order Act (concerning public protests), the Harassment Act (concerning things like slander, stalking and such), and various liberalistic and frankly Nazi Statutes passed over the last 25 or so years, all of which are intended to suppress what, where and how you can speak.

      ***through a blanket gagging order in Section 97 of the Children Act 1989 to not talk about their cases and through superinjunctions issued at forced adoptions which puts a risk of contempt of court for any parent who talks about the existence of that order, never mind the existence of their own children.

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
  15. Promotion of arts and sciences? by roman_mir · · Score: -1

    So I don't know how it is worded in United Kingdom's law, but in USA law government protectionism of copyright is worded as:

    To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

    From TFA:

    If the blockade continues, it wonâ(TM)t be too farfetched to assume that UK based artists might not be able to benefit from the opportunity that The Promo Bay provides. ISPs in the UK are blocking the new site with a similar message as is displayed for The Pirate Bay. The block on the promotion platform seems to be a mistake and probably will be resolved it is believed.

    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.

    --
    You can't handle the truth.
    1. Re:Promotion of arts and sciences? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      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?

  16. Because they're not charging for entertainment by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is probably what it is. If it can't be taxed then it's illegal.

  17. Probably because they can't read by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Probably because they can't read. It looks like it says "the porno bay".

  18. No Problem Here by folderol · · Score: 1

    But then, I'm using one of the small (semi) independent ISPs.

  19. I get this message by Highland+Deck+Box · · Score: 1

    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.

    1. Re:I get this message by cyclohazard · · Score: 1

      Does it say which court order? Other comments indicate that they might just have interpreted the court order regarding the Pirate Bay a bit, um, widely.

    2. Re:I get this message by mrbester · · Score: 1

      Quite. If they can put up a page saying a site is blocked by court order they can include a link to the public domain information of that court order.

      Otherwise it can be used as a "don't blame us" get out clause for blocking anything just because they feel like it / fucked up.

      --
      "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
    3. Re:I get this message by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

      February's judgement which appears to have been conducted ex parte (without the respondents or their representation present) and resulted in summary judgement for Dramatico et. al.

      Telling in para. 17:

      For the purposes of these proceedings, the Claimants rely in particular upon the copyrights which the relevant Claimant owns in each of the recordings in the following sample albums:
      Recording Claimant
      "The House" by Katie Melua Dramatic Entertainment Ltd
      "It's Not Me, It's You" by Lily Allen EMI Records Ltd
      "Last Night On Earth" by Noah & The Whale Mercury Records Ltd
      "Lights" by Ellie Goulding Polydor Ltd
      "Valhalla Dancehall" by British Sea Power Rough Trade Records Ltd
      "Everybody Wants To Be On TV" by Scouting For Girls Sony Music Entertainment UK Ltd
      "What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?" by The Vaccines Sony Music Entertainment UK Ltd
      "Hold Me Down" by You Me At Six Virgin Records Ltd
      "Seasons Of My Soul" by Rumer Warner Music UK Ltd
      "The Defamation of Strickland Banks" by Plan B 679 Recordings Ltd

      Like I'd even consider buying anything from those "artists" on CD, much less pull them down from a Torrent site! What the fuck do they think I am, some spotty little fucking urchin?

      Pedant point: haven't TPB stopped using Torrents now? Don't they use Magnet links? This would render this judgement and the following order irrelevant.

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
  20. Syntax error by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did you mean "KTHXBAI" ?

  21. I'm with Virgin and it works for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Works here (in Glasgow) with Virgin.

  22. Re:hum.....If thats correct.... by Jaknet · · Score: 2

    Now working on TalkTalk though earlier today it came up as blocked

  23. Nope. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As a BT customer, I can access the Promo Bay. It is not (currently) being blocked.

  24. Not blocked on Virgin... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... I'm in London and getting through to the site fine.

    1. Re:Not blocked on Virgin... by Cederic · · Score: 1

      http://promobay.org/ is blocked on my Virgin broadband connection.

      See also: http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Chatter/Blocking-of-the-Promo-Bay/m-p/1589066

  25. motives by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:motives by Nyder · · Score: 1, Insightful

      ...>

      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!@!".

      I've been playing Farcry 3 here in the U.S. for a week now. DRM has failed, it doesn't keep it out of the hands of anyone but paying customers.

      --
      Be seeing you...
    2. Re:motives by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've been playing Farcry 3 here in the U.S. for a week now. DRM has failed, it doesn't keep it out of the hands of anyone but paying customers.

      DRM has also failed Ubisoft in another way: They lost at least 1 customer, me, due to DRM.

    3. Re:motives by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

      2. What, the cheeky fuckers calling paying customers thieves? They can stick Farcry 3 as far up their arses as it will go.

      Sideways.

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
  26. I'm on BT and I can see it. by Duds · · Score: 3, Informative

    So if they're blocking it might be pure DNS since I use OpenDNS.

  27. OK for me on Virgin by dhaen · · Score: 1, Informative

    I can see it and it has a link to a Pirate Bay proxy. Seems like the story is bullshit.

    1. Re:OK for me on Virgin by dhaen · · Score: 2

      But I'm using Googles DNS 8.8.8.8 - who wouldn't?

    2. Re:OK for me on Virgin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Working fine for me on VIrgin with their default DNS. Either they didn't do much research or the site was just down and they declared it was being blocked.

    3. Re:OK for me on Virgin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've got Virgin, it _is_ blocked for me at 22:32 GMT. I run my own DNS resolver (unbound)

      The piratebay block is ip level not dns level, this appears to be the same. No idea why it works for you guys and not me?

      Any way time to add it to foxyproxy list to go via tor.

    4. Re:OK for me on Virgin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (replying to my self - ac for life)

      You guys sure you have the right url?

      promobay.org is blocked, but if I google it the top result is thepromobay.co.uk which is unblocked. No idea if these are the same site or run by the same ppl.

    5. Re:OK for me on Virgin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I take it you're going to http://thepromobay.co.uk/ not http://promobay.org/

      The latter being the legitimate site that is illegitimately blocked, the former being what appears to be a proxy to thepiratebay. Given that fact it is entirely imaginable that they meant to block the .co.uk site not the other one. It's also entirely imaginable that they did it maliciously. Give em a few days and I'm sure we'll find out which it is. Take a guess which one will actually surprise me.

  28. I can see it by Pop69 · · Score: 1

    It's not blocked on Plusnet, a BT subsiduary

    1. Re:I can see it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not blocked for me on Virgin either. Either the article is BS or the site was down and they decided it was being blocked.

    2. Re:I can see it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      PlusNet isn't "a BT subsidiary".They're an independent company who white-label BT OpenReach DSL (and white-label Gradwell VoIP).

    3. Re:I can see it by Pop69 · · Score: 1

      They've been owned by BT since 2007. That would make them a BT subsiduary wouldn't it ?

  29. works for me by dave69 · · Score: 1

    I'm on Virgin media in London, UK and I can see the promo site just fine

  30. Not blocked on Virgin Media for me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Come on, basic checking please...

  31. Without Mandated neutrality by nurb432 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Any ISP can block any traffic for any reason.. We best get used to it, it will only get worse.

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  32. Blocked on O2 by pointyhat · · Score: 2

    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.

  33. Re:hum.....If thats correct.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ditto. Virgin Media (Ex. Telwest/Blueyonder). No problems at all.

  34. Same IP by advantis · · Score: 2
    I can't believe I haven't read this one yet:

    $ 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?
    1. Re:Same IP by advantis · · Score: 5, Informative

      Replying to myself because I just got the brilliant idea to see if BT aren't actually hijacking DNS itself, making me look like an idiot. Well... they succeeded:

      $ dig +trace thepiratebay.org
      #snip#
      thepiratebay.org. 3600 IN A 194.71.107.50

      $ dig +trace promobay.org
      #snip#
      promobay.org. 3600 IN A 108.59.2.74

      Promobay.org works once I add its IP to /etc/hosts.

      Why are BT hijacking the DNS for promobay.org? I have no idea, but a judge might be interested.

      --
      Question for religious people: where do unrepentant masochists go when they die?
  35. UK is U$A little b1tch. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    /slap /slap

  36. Response by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's time to block BT and Virgin Media.

  37. and which of us can't get to Promo Bay? by SuperBanana · · Score: 1

    "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.

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