Slashdot Mirror
UK Court Orders Block of Three Torrent Sites
angry tapir writes "A court in the U.K. has ordered key Internet service providers in the country to block three torrent sites on a complaint from music labels including EMI Records and Sony Music. The High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, ordered six ISPs including Virgin Media, British Telecommunications and British Sky Broadcasting to block H33t, Kickass Torrents and Fenopy."
My first response is "Must check out those sites".
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
What will that accomplish?
Invest in VPN service providers.
My first response is "Must check out those sites".
If you're in the UK, you may wish to use a VPN or suchlike. Until they're made illegal outside "reputable corporations".
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
The internet was designed to survive a nuclear strike, and reroute around the damage. Same premise applies here, Block one sight 1000 new sights take its place. Only thing that will slow it will be scare tactics with fines and mandatory long-term imprisonment longer than capitol crimes to scare John Q. Public into compliance...as it always has been
That would be my first thought, except i'm still doing fine with piratebay. Y'know, the one they blocked ages ago which definitely doesn't have numerous easy to find proxies that make such rulings pointless
BPI (British Pornographic Industry)
Oho. Your joke would be so funny... if that's what TFA actually said.
australian courts aren't retarded
there's always epic rap battles of history
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njos57IJf-0&list=PLQ-7WiWmOuK-55mfcd_tdcvy-57VMCkOW&index=5
My first response is "Certainly that will work."
Ok, so who wants to print the "This is a bit, this is a byte" slides, and send them to the judge, so he can find the error of his ways?
I am John Hurt.
My first response is "Must check out those sites".
If you're in the UK, you may wish to use a VPN or suchlike. Until they're made illegal outside "reputable corporations".
There's no need to use a VPN. The sites will simply pop up under various URL/domains. Some of them already have.
Exactly, this will make absolutely no difference to the vast majority of people using TPB etc.
site not sight...
c++;
It would be nice if people had the ability to get all the torrent files from a site to mirror it. I'm high right now, but just something where the torrent sites could just open their database code like a freebsd project with infinite forks
But I've heard of it now. Thanks EMI Records and Sony Music! I will be sure to check it out.
My response is to add them to my foxy proxy list so i get to them via tor.
firefox+foxyproxy+tor > silly court order
There's no need to use a VPN. The sites will simply pop up under various URL/domains. Some of them already have.
Indeed, the first thing I thought when this came up was: Here we go, the greatest whack-a-mole game in history is about to begin...
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
My guess is, if you haven't heard of them, it's probably because you don't do much torrenting. That was my first response, too.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Thanks was looking for a torrent I couldn't find on TPB and found it on Fenopy. :)
When will governments learn? I don't know where they're getting their "P2P sharing is down" figures from, if anything torrents are having more seeders these days, I guess they're ignoring private trackers. My money's on proxies going up for these by the end of day, maybe Tuesday.
If you're in the UK, you may wish to use a VPN or suchlike.
Or any ISP other than those listed in the order. We have lots of ISPs.
These orders only apply to the retail arms of big ISPs and not the wholesale services they resell to smaller ISPs.
If you're using a good torrent search engine it'll give you a whole list of sites that have the exact same content. I fail to see how this achieves anything
There is a regularly published mirror of tpb you can grab.... its rather large though ;)
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
This game of blocking the sites cannot be won. Let’s say it takes, at best, one month from BPI or copyright holder to figure out that one site is infringing the copyright, file a suite and have a verdict against the infringing site. That process takes time and money. On the other hand, duplicating the site’s content on some other IP and the alternative name can happen overnight and is virtually free. So there will always be sites providing free access to any works.
What is more concerning here is that none of the sites blocked hosted the copyrighted works. This is something that only few really consider as a serious shift in the court system. None of the sites blocked for copyright infringement host copyrighted works! What will be the next step? Someone will create a site that will list all the blocked sites along with the new mirrored sites that can be accessed within the UK. Should this new site be blocked? Based on what? It doesn’t host any copyrighted works, nor provides an index to the copyrighted works. Let’s say that the UK block-thirsty judges will issue a new verdict to block the sites that list mirrors. What next? Someone will write a browser plugin that will automatically redirect to the current working mirror of the blocked sites and users will continue to use the sites without even noticing any blocking and without using any VPN. Should browser plugins be blocked or any sites that host browser plugins? Someone will say that it will be good enough if less people are aware of the options. But how did we get to the point that more users are aware of thepiratebay than about the legal ways of obtaining the same material? The reason is that thepiratebay does better consolidating all the media (even that that cannot be purchased anywhere) in one spot at an attractive price point. Offer something better and people will pick the alternative. Otherwise, blocking will not solve any problem that BPI thinks exists.
There's no such thing as "illegal download"
Fortunately, all you actually need to do is not use a big-name ISP. The ISP I use has not yet been ordered to block anything, including TPB (which the ISPs named above have been blocking for months now, AIUI).
Yes. Added to my list, didn't know about these ;)
We already did this one four days ago:
High Court Orders UK ISPs To Block More Torrent Sites.
Yup. Thanks, UK court, for showing the rest of the world where to find some more torrent sites.
Ok, so who wants to print the "This is a bit, this is a byte" slides, and send them to the judge, so he can find the error of his ways?
Are you quoting this?
Watch great movie opening scenes!
Hey I just realized something. There was a lot of discussion last week about the new "six strikes" system and what the media & cable companies can or can't do to your connection. They can't shut you off, or do anything more than deliver warnings and throttle you.
But that's not really the point. The point is they're collecting LOTS of evidence. All those anonymous IP lawsuits the MPAA used to do en masse? They're not anonymous anymore and they have a lot more than just an IP. "Judge, the defendant has five strikes on his record and was warned repeatedly. We'd like the maximum of $150,000 per offense." It will be SO much easier for them now.
Is that some dude in a white wig and black robes said "Kickass Torrents".
I'm surprised no-one has written a website/web-service where if you submit one blocked address, you get another one returned which hasn't been blocked.
Should be a fairly simple thing to develop.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Only if you include some par2 files...
Is a new trans-border government agency set up right old wrongs and to right perceived wrongs, even if the wrong is in the future.
With bold thinking like this - anything is possible. Now if only politicians were 'done' for perceived wrongs.
This needs a higher score than it has. Alas, I have no mod points.
Nobody cares what the CAPTCHA for your post was.
They changed their side, we change ours.
Copyright for 14 years? THEN change it?
Well, we don't agree. So we move to the default position: copying what we have is not forbidden.
Just like fast cars are LEGAL cars. That people break the speed limit doesn't make that change.
I wonder if these ISPs only removed the DNS entry. I wonder if one could just enter in the IP address directly or use OpenDNS.
Of course you can, or just use a smaller ISP which isn't subject to the banning order. It's just a farcical waste of time.
Open a site called mygreattorrents.com. Work out that the SHA1 of that name is (say it's 123456789abcdef). Register 123456789abcdef.com (and maybe .co.uk, .net, .it, or whatever - perhaps pick the suffix based on the hash in some way). Repeat, but using 1.mygreattorrents.com, 2.mygreattorrents.com and so on. You may need to point the hash DNS names at proxies, although you may even be able to use a CDN to do the same thing.
Next, create a browser plugin that knows to automatically hash URLs and look them up in DNS. If they fail, it knows to automatically add incrementing numbers and retry the hash. It should probably have some sort of cache so that it doesn't have to traverse loads of site names every time you want to visit somewhere.
You've now got a DNS block-resistant web site. If the original gets blocked, then the secondary or tertiary takes over. What's more, you get some extra happiness knowing lawyers and judges will be arguing something like this:
Lawyer: "Your honour, a previous case saw mygreatteorrents.com blocked. However, the owners have set up a secondary site that has the exact same infringing content on it. We move to have said site also blocked"
Judge: "(mutters something in Latin). Council, what is the name of this secondary site?"
Lawyer "two, A, three, C, C, E, one..."
Judge: "(more inaudible Latin) I'm sorry, Council, whs that C, C, E or C, E?"
Lawyer "C, C, E, your honour. As I was saying, thee, F, E..."
(and so it goes on)
What's the point of continuing to use state police power to enforce the copyright in an over 60-year-old feature film when the only lawful option for the vast majority of the public is "not getting at it"?
It's the casual pirates that they're targeting, the people who would normally buy a CD/DVD/game/app if no other source is readily available
Publishers can't sincerely target this group of infringers without actually releasing the CD/DVD/game/app. So why can't I get a lawfully made copy of the film Song of the South, the TV series Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea, and the video game Mother 3?
Lets say the music industry succeeds in eliminating all pirating and cheap/free legal ways to enjoy entertainment media. I'm still not going back to spending $20 for an album or movie, that era is over.
Consider this perfectly well-formed sentence: "The ass of Jesus was upon an ass." Back when the U.S. Democratic Party still used a donkey motif (before switching to a circled blue D), the official party blog was titled "Kicking Ass". The judge could have easily just imagined describing a clip like two boys kicking a donkey off a cliff.
Kickass is a horrible torrent site. There is so much garbage on their page, half the links lead to stuff you have to pay for (not in a legal way), most of the torrents I have seen don't have any seeders, its hard to find anything . Truthfully, if you can't find it on The Pirate Bay or on some private torrent site, your best bet is a Torrent Search Engine. KickAss is one of those sites that come up if you try to do a torrent search in Google.
Now I am not saying that the site is completely worthless, just saying that it needs a major redesign. Unless their goal is to TRY to confuse and mislead people.
This is total bullshit. I've used Kickass for years and not run into anything you describe. If you find using a website to be so challenging, I suggest you do something else.
Actually that was ARPAnet, not the Internet. The Internet didn't inherit that functionality from ARPAnet (that's not saying that such functionality doesn't exist on the Internet, but that was developed after the Internet as part of routing protocols that are often tied under peering agreements that are not automatically granted because of something like a nuclear attack).
Not really. It's more like there are many sites like that and one becomes more notable when a major one goes away.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Paraphrasing, but yes, the BOFH's influence can be found, at times, in my writings.
I am John Hurt.
Hmm?
...
Just use Google with filetype:torrent as an extra parameter.
metallica black album filetype:torrent is just a random example.
the interesting part is not so much that it shows a lot of links. Interesting is also at the ende the part that talks about what is blocked:
One of them reads:In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 3 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.
When you go to that site, you will see all the URLs neatly presented.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
You'll be saying playing a game of whack-a-mole achieves nothing next!
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Bizarre. KAT has a very wide selection, and as long as you have javascript turned off it's a very clean and easily navigable site. Presently it's my favourite site for just about every reason imaginable.
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
I mean, this is only a court order, against sites that have _not yet_ been persecuted for copyright infringement. So how can the court order this without at least opening a case against them? This sounds wholly illegal to me.
"The more prohibitions there are, The poorer the people will be" -- Lao Tse
I don't know what you're searching for, but I've never had any results "you had to pay for". You do know the top ones are ads, right?
As for the seeders, that's common for all public torrent sites (I'm not a regular of private ones). It's usually not a problem anyway, since the DHT will get a few even if the site says otherwise.
Dilbert RSS feed