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Irish SOPA Used To Block Pirate Bay Access

Posted by Unknown on from the whack-a-mole dept.

ObsessiveMathsFreak writes "Ireland's own SOPA Act has finally struck home. Today, the Irish High Court ordered all ISPs to begin censoring the The Pirate Bay. After earlier attempts were struck down, this case was brought by EMI, Sony, Warner Music and Universal music under new copyright laws brought in last year. This follows the largest ISP Eircom already having voluntarily blocked the Pirate Bay after previous legal action. Despite some early indications that some ISPs would appeal the decision, it now appears that like Eircom, they have quietly given up. Pity; IT was one of the few industries Ireland was getting right."

9 of 94 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Making it harder to pirate? by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All the downloads on TPB are legal.

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    Summation 2
  2. Serioulsy how fucking hard by future+assassin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    can it be to take the lawyer money and build the damn distribution websites aleady. If people with no money can do it in their spare time, I guess the answer is the studios dont want to. Then WTF are you in the business for? Seriosuly are these mother fucker so out of touch with reality?

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    by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
    1. Re:Serioulsy how fucking hard by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I guess the answer is the studios dont want to.

      correct.

      Then WTF are you in the business for?

      They believe they're in business to maximize their profits, not to make customers happy. Now, a good business functioning in a free market would accomplish both at the same time, but the *AA get to rest on copyright instead, effectively calling in the government's guns to enforce their stupid business model.

      And guess who's subsidizing that stupid business model by paying for those men in guns? That's right, the same people who are getting hosed at the other end.

      We probably either ought to give up our taste for pre-recorded entertainment or our system of government. Or maybe both.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    2. Re:Serioulsy how fucking hard by Rod+Beauvex · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This not about money. It never was. It is about control.

    3. Re:Serioulsy how fucking hard by jenningsthecat · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This not about money. It never was. It is about control.

      Yes, it IS about control. It's about clinging to a past that they were able to understand and manipulate, rather than forging ahead to an unknown future with different rules that require different competencies and a different kind of creativity. And it's about a sense of entitlement too - they believe that with all of the pillaging they've managed to do over the past six decades or so, they've somehow earned the right to continue in that vein.

      But it's also about money, because they are incapable of seeing how they can continue to profit in the age of unstoppable file sharing. Deep down, they're scared. They're finally experiencing the kind of fear, resentment, and ultimately, powerlessness they've put countless recording artists through. And I say "Good!"

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      'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
  3. Re:Making it harder to pirate? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Its pretty hard to find any downloads on the PirateBay.
    Since they don't host anything..

  4. Precedents, not specifics by intermodal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm more concerned with the precedent this could set than with specifically seeing the government block TPB.

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    In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
  5. Re:Making it harder to pirate? by nabsltd · · Score: 4, Informative

    You can only "download" web pages and magnet links from piratebay now. Not even torrent files are available, other then linked from torcache.net.

    TBP still serves torrent files for torrents that don't meet the minimum requirements for seeder and leecher count. Check a link and you will see that the file comes from a .piratebay.sx domain. It's also easy to show that it's not coming from torcache, as there are torrent files available on TPB that aren't on torcache.

    I can't recall the exact numbers used as thresholds, but it's about a total of 10 peers.

  6. Re:Making it harder to pirate? by mcgrew · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've never had problems finding legal content there. Have you ever looked? If you did look and found nothing you're doing it wrong.

    The Paxil Diaries is there, I seeded it myself. Musician friends' work is there; they, too, seeded it. I've been begged by folks to release The Paxil Diaries in hardcover so they could buy a copy. Guess where they heard about it? The internet. Guess where they got a copy? I emailed it to them for free or they got it from TPB. Now that folks kinda know me they'll buy the next one.

    I wouldn't have that dozen Asimov books on my shelf had I not read his stuff for free at the library.

    The MAFIAA knows that piracy doesn't hurt sales, study after study has shown this. However, if you buy two indie CDs from my musician friends, that's ten bucks you don't have to buy a MAFIAA CD and the MAFIAA did lose a sale; we don't have unlimited supplies of cash.

    Competition hurts sales. The fight against piracy is a fight to keep their independent competitors invisible. As Doctorow says, nobody ever lost any money from piracy but many have starved from obscurity.

    That's why the internet is so scary to the old media. Nobody needs them anymore because of it.

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    Free Martian Whores!