Torrentz.eu Domain Name Suspended

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Torrentz.eu Domain Name Suspended

Posted by Unknown on Monday May 26, 2014 @09:04PM from the searching-is-now-a-crime dept.

First time accepted submitter S37Rigor Mortis (1601271) writes "Torrentz.eu, the largest torrent search engine on the Internet, has had its domain name suspended following a request from the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit in the UK. The site continues to operate under two alternative domains, and is hoping to move the .eu domain to a new registrar." Update: 05/27 12:53 GMT by T : That was quick; the site is back, "after the owners pointed out that its suspension was illegal."

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Brits still think they own the world... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-26 21:07 · Score: 2, Interesting

The Fascist Police of London had a .com domain pulled from a Ukrainian website the other day...
1. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by sa1lnr · 2014-05-26 22:17 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Really, from what I've been able to read so far the City of London Police "made a request" and the registrar agreed to that request.
  Not saying this is right or wrong, just questioning the fascist bit.
2. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-26 22:19 · Score: 1
  
  It is, though. .com domains aren't part of their jurisdiction. Neither are servers hosted in Ukraine.
3. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-26 23:16 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Fascists very seldom use violence, or even direct threat of violence. They create an environment where they don't need to.
  When you say "made a request", what exactly do you mean. "Made a request" means that it was implied that the registrar somehow would be held accountable or that they otherwise would be given a hard time if they didn't comply then it is perfectly fair to claim that the police has fascist tendencies.
  With the right intonation and in the right environment "It would be unfortunate if you didn't comply" or "I would be disappointed if you didn't comply" is far more threatening than "I will hit you if you don't comply"
4. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by mwvdlee · 2014-05-26 23:32 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  As I understand it, the Police of London is a very small, mostly corporate controlled entity with much less impact than they purport to have.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
  
  --
  Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
5. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by Raenex · 2014-05-26 23:49 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Really, from what I've been able to read so far the City of London Police "made a request" and the registrar agreed to that request.
  Not saying this is right or wrong, just questioning the fascist bit.
  Let's say you live in an apartment. What if they "made a request" to your landlord to lock you out of your own apartment, and the landlord dutifully complied. Perhaps you might feel differently if your stuff was taken in such a manner.
6. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by Megane · 2014-05-27 01:18 · Score: 1
  
  "That's a very nice domain name registrar you have there, sir. It would be a real shame if... something were to happen to it. For instance, it might... break. Knowutimean, guv?"
  
  --
  #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
7. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by Blue+Stone · 2014-05-27 05:01 · Score: 2
  
  The City of London is a defacto city state and an actual corporatocracy.
  The City of London police are their hired thugs.
  
  --
  Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
8. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by M1FCJ · 2014-05-27 05:06 · Score: 1
  
  City of London Police is a private police force covering the City of London (a tiny bit of London) which takes its orders not from the Government but from the City of London Corporation directly. They are also an 'expert' in fraud and do their best by not finding any within the City borders.
  They also employ thugs worse than usually found within the Police service for the rest of London, The Metropolitan Police Service. Also there is no elected commissioner (unlike the rest of the country) for this police force, it's totally separate and he is assigned by the Corporation - which is run by the rich corporates in the area.
  It's totally fascist, whatever way you look at it.
9. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by M1FCJ · 2014-05-27 05:12 · Score: 1
  
  In the London occupations, people learned that their batons are as hard as the rest of them.
10. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by CanEHdian · 2014-05-27 07:18 · Score: 1
  
  The City of London Corporation wants to expand its own "Campus Police" to a full-fledged "Corporate World Police" complete with politicians in their pockets to further advance the corporate agenda.
  
  --
  When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
11. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by Raenex · 2014-05-27 13:30 · Score: 1
  
  Having your stuff taken in an extrajudicial manner counts as fascist to me. Due process and all that. What I illustrated was that saying that it was only a request is a weak response.
12. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by Raenex · 2014-05-27 13:43 · Score: 1
  
  90% of the content of my apartment was illegal material I wouldn't be all that surprised.
  I would expect a court order in such a case, and not just a "request" by an authority that probably doesn't even have jurisdiction. And hey look, there's an Update link in the summary:
  
  Massive torrent search engine Torrentz.eu is once again accessible in the UK following a 24-hour ban, after the owners pointed out that its suspension was illegal.
  Torrentz, which is the most popular search engine of its kind, was taken down when the site's Polish registrar Nazwa complied with a request from the UK's Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) on Sunday and suspended the Torrentz.eu domain.
  However on Monday a lawyer for the search engine contacted Nazwa and pointed out an ICANN ruling which stated a court order was needed to get a domain suspended, according to a report on TorrentFreak.
13. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by stoatwblr · 2014-05-28 05:56 · Score: 1
  
  Given this is a violation of ICANN rules (court order is always required), it would be ironic if the COLP had to pay out damages for illegal activity.
14. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by Jack+Griffin · 2014-05-28 20:34 · Score: 1
  
  What about when it was all given back? I'd actually have more faith that the system works. The system doesn't guarantee a perfect life for all, but it does provide a mechanism to keep things on the right track, which is exactly what appears to have happened here.
Now a redirect by Maquis196 · 2014-05-26 21:12 · Score: 4, Interesting

I got redirected to torrentz.ch and I can't tell if this is blocked by British ISPs like torrentz.eu was...
So no service problems. Good job internet.
1. Re:Now a redirect by Maquis196 · 2014-05-26 21:13 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  hate replying to myself, but after proxying through my home server (on BT infinity), torrentz.ch is certainly not blocked. Way to go UK!
2. Re:Now a redirect by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-26 23:04 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Thank you for reporting this problem. Our engineers our still working out some implementation details. This should be fixed shortly.
  -- BT Infinity
Criminal scum by AmiMoJo · 2014-05-26 21:14 · Score: 3, Insightful

These criminal scum need to be stopped. The City of London Police are abusing their power to enforce civil matters and shut down legitimate search engines. Apparently no-one is watching the watchers.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
1. Re:Criminal scum by Maquis196 · 2014-05-26 21:26 · Score: 1
  
  City of London top brass also in cahoots with Scientology as well from what I understand. Theyre an honest bunch
2. Re:Criminal scum by AmiMoJo · 2014-05-26 21:40 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Try googling "harry potter torrent" and see what links you get. It indexes content, legitimate or otherwise.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
3. Re:Criminal scum by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-26 21:43 · Score: 2
  
  'Legitimate? The site clearly promotes piracy.'
  As legitimate as BBC and other media companies openly supporting terrorists in Syria. Why not shut them down too on some kneejerk?
4. Re:Criminal scum by 91degrees · 2014-05-26 21:51 · Score: 1
  
  What proportion of Torrentz.eu users would you say are looking for non infringing files? What proportion of Google users would you say are looking for infringing files?
  
  Personally I'd guess that most - possibly more thqan 99% of users- use torrentz.eu purely for copyright infringing uses. I know I do, and so do most of my friends. I'd also estimate that less than 5% of Google users are looking for infringing files.
  
  If any service is mostly used illegally, I'd expect the police to attempt to have it shut down.
5. Re:Criminal scum by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-26 21:55 · Score: 1
  
  Piracy hurts rich people. Until terrorism stops hurting poor brown people in other countries and starts impacting only upon the rich, there won't be any real action against them for doing so.
6. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-26 22:00 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Try googling "harry potter torrent" and see what links you get. It indexes content, legitimate or otherwise.
  No, there is a big difference because Google's main intent is not to promote piracy.
7. Re:Criminal scum by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-26 22:05 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Really? So all torrentz.eu has to do is a dual search engine ("search for torrents or cat pictures!") and force users to do one cat picture search before they can do a torrent search. This way only 49% of searches are illegal and the service won't be shut down.
8. Re:Criminal scum by bl968 · 2014-05-26 22:07 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  I did a search and if you are looking for copyrighted materials you can find them. But you find a lot of other stuff as well. Linux distributions, freely distributable music. Public domain materials etc. this is a search engine.
  
  --
  "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
9. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-26 22:09 · Score: 2
  
  Heh, apparently the Slashdot piracy mob already quickly modded down my both messages.
10. Re:Criminal scum by 91degrees · 2014-05-26 22:29 · Score: 2
  
  The law doesn't work like that. There isn't a strict rule that "Below x% it's legal".
  
  You'd have to be a complete idiot to think that the users actually want those cat pictures rather than the copyright infringing files. This is why the law uses a human element. We can use our judgement. You'd also have to be a complete idiot to believe that torrentz.eu isn't primarily interested in facilitating copyright infringement.
11. Re:Criminal scum by 91degrees · 2014-05-26 22:31 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Me too:)
  
  I think a lot of Slashdot users can't cope with the fact that the law and software algorithms work differently.
12. Re:Criminal scum by Opportunist · 2014-05-26 22:52 · Score: 2
  
  Piracy or not, last time I checked copyright violations were not in the CRIMINAL code. So what's the police doing there? Enforcing the interest of a PRIVATE party?
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
13. Re:Criminal scum by gl4ss · 2014-05-26 22:56 · Score: 2
  
  that doesn't matter.
  google is largely geared towards finding copyrighted porno.
  
  --
  world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
14. Re:Criminal scum by gnupun · 2014-05-26 23:19 · Score: 1
  
  And how many times does youtube get sued and gets copyrighted content pulled? Why don't you be a hero and try uploading a recent movie onto youtube and see how long it stays?
  Most copyrighted content on youtube is music, which is usually a very low quality reproduction, which is probably why it survives being taken down. Plus the song enjoys free publicity being on youtube.
15. Re:Criminal scum by CurryCamel · 2014-05-26 23:33 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Wait, this search engine located at youtube.com - is that not primarly used for pirating music and videos? At least that is what I use it for, almost to 99%. And youtube.com is a service run by Google.
16. Re:Criminal scum by Noryungi · 2014-05-26 23:35 · Score: 2
  
  You mean like this?
  https://torrentz.eu/525245e5e3...
  Or this?
  https://torrentz.eu/156b69b864...
  Or this?
  https://torrentz.eu/4d75347442...
  Or that one maybe?
  https://torrentz.eu/e67f4ebb4c...
  Hey, what do you know? They actually distribute some legal content! Amazing!
  
  --
  The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
17. Re:Criminal scum by radio4fan · 2014-05-26 23:40 · Score: 2
  
  The City of London Police are abusing their power to enforce civil matters and shut down legitimate search engines.
  And what's really odd is that this domain is blocked in the UK by the big ISPs anyway. It was blocked along with a bunch of others back in October 2013.
  If I try to access it on my current ISP, I get redirected here: http://assets.virginmedia.com/site-blocked.html.
  So the City Police are trying to take down a domain that you can't even access directly in the UK.
18. Re:Criminal scum by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-26 23:41 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  "possibly more thqan 99% of users- use torrentz.eu purely for copyright infringing uses. I know I do, and so do most of my friends. I'd also estimate that less than 5% of Google users are looking for infringing files."
  But if looking at absolute numbers the amount of people searching for infringing files in Goole is way larger than in torrenz.eu. Basically you are saying the corner dealer has to go to jail because he sold drugs to 99 people and his sandwich to one, where Walmart is ok because they sold drugs to 5000 people, but also sold sandwiches to 95000 people. Either indexing content is ok or it isn't.
19. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-26 23:50 · Score: 1
  
  Actually that's pretty good counter-argument to my comment. On the other hand, they do remove content based on complaints, but still you are mostly right.
20. Re:Criminal scum by Threni · 2014-05-27 00:01 · Score: 1
  
  So it's ok that if you google for, say, "schoenberg torrent flac" you get pretty much exclusively pirate sites? Why aren't google blocking these dodgy torrent sites?
21. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-27 00:05 · Score: 2
  
  That's like saying that a sex shop is a general-purpose convenience store if they happen to sell some candy too.
22. Re:Criminal scum by matthias.loeffel · 2014-05-27 00:10 · Score: 2
  
  On the other hand, they do remove content based on complaints
  Which of torrentz.eu cannot do even if they wanted to, as they don't host any content.
23. Re:Criminal scum by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-27 00:12 · Score: 1
  
  Right, I can search warez, dvdrips, porn, and music!
24. Re:Criminal scum by Ash+Vince · 2014-05-27 00:18 · Score: 1
  
  These criminal scum need to be stopped. The City of London Police are abusing their power to enforce civil matters and shut down legitimate search engines. Apparently no-one is watching the watchers.
  Copyright infringement is a criminal matter, not a civil one. Our duly elected governments have passed various (albeit baddly concieved) laws making this the responsibility of the police to enforce as a criminal matter. Therefore the police are kind of forced into doing this sort of stuff. I agree with some of your sentiment, but factually you are utterly incorrect.
  If you are going to post about what a stupid move this sort of thing is, and how ineffective it will turn out to be then fine, that is correct. It is however worth remembering that UK law has made dealing in illegal copies of copyright works a criminal offence since the copyright, designs and patents act of 1988 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright,_Designs_and_Patents_Act_1988).
  There was some debate as to whether linking to something that was on a different server and therefore held by someone else was covered by this, but I believe most of that debate was held in the US as here in the UK it was covered by the same act that codified this as "secondary infringement" and also made it a criminal offence.
  The net result of this is in this case, the police were just doing there job by enforcing criminal law. The fact that you think that the law is unjust and should be changed does not stop the plod from having to enforce it.
  
  --
  I dont read /. to RTFA, I read /. to offend people in ignorance.
25. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-27 00:19 · Score: 1
  
  Why aren't google blocking these dodgy torrent sites?
  That would be shooting the messenger. Google indexes everything.
26. Re:Criminal scum by CurryCamel · 2014-05-27 00:21 · Score: 1
  
  Don't they host the metadata that allow the download of the disputed data? Would not removing the torrent (search result) upon request be sufficient to keep torrentz.eu unblocked?
27. Re:Criminal scum by Ash+Vince · 2014-05-27 00:26 · Score: 1
  
  And how many times does youtube get sued and gets copyrighted content pulled? Why don't you be a hero and try uploading a recent movie onto youtube and see how long it stays?
  Most copyrighted content on youtube is music, which is usually a very low quality reproduction, which is probably why it survives being taken down. Plus the song enjoys free publicity being on youtube.
  Exactly!!
  I this case the police actually try and engage with the site owners first and help them become legal. That means honouring take down requests from rights holders and such. Google quite happily do that, so they are fine even if in some cases they do enable people to find pirated work. Torrentz.eu on the other hand probably do not honour take down requests :)
  It is not about whether your site enables copyright infringement, it is about whether you make even the slightest attempt to take stuff down when legally compelled to. Believe it or not some torrent sites exist legally by letting people upload copyright infringing content but then taking it down when the copyright owner asks them to, even though this is clearly ridiculous it is also legal.
  
  --
  I dont read /. to RTFA, I read /. to offend people in ignorance.
28. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-27 00:41 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, you can. I do not disagree with that in any way.
29. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-27 00:44 · Score: 1
  
  On the other hand, they [Google] do remove content based on complaints
  Which of torrentz.eu cannot do even if they wanted to, as they don't host any content.
  Google does not host the content either.
30. Re:Criminal scum by 91degrees · 2014-05-27 01:42 · Score: 1
  
  Well, sort of. It's a little difficult for walmart to claim that they were unwillingly or unwittingly selling drugs. This is more a question of "mens rea". Guilt is about willingness to cause harm rather than quantity of harm. For much the same reason, I'm guilty of a crime even if I fail to actually complete the act.
  
  But broadly speaking, yes.
  
  Indexing is okay. Indexing infringing material is not.
  
  It is not reasonable to expect a company to eliminate 100% of infringing material, so a certain amount is tolerated. It is reasonable to expect a company to make some effort to reduce the problem.
  
  The bigger the problem is, the more effort they should make here.
  
  There are many other factors that will be taken into consideration. These will be weighed and balanced with a large degree of subjectability.
  
  I really think it's naive to claim that torrentz.eu and google are doing the same thing based on the fact that they're both indexing. Are you really claiming the people running torrentz.eu aren't aware of the level of piracy that goes on, or that they are trying to do something to reduce it? Do you think, that if they could wave a magic wand and prevent any piracy they would do so?
31. Re:Criminal scum by ultranova · 2014-05-27 01:42 · Score: 1
  
  So what's the police doing there? Enforcing the interest of a PRIVATE party?
  
  I think it's about time we stop pretending mega-corporations are "private". I propose a threefold model: there's the "official" sector, composed of the institutions that are officially the part of the government structure, the "public" sector, composed of various non-governmental institutions (corporations, nonprofits, religious organizations, etc), and the "private" sector, composed of individuals.
  Among other things, this would let us cleanly separate individuals controlling the official sector (good) and corporations controlling the official sector (bad). It would also let us have separate sets of rights for institutions and individuals, thus avoiding concepts like "corporate personhood" in its current, defective form.
  
  --
  Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
32. Re:Criminal scum by nabsltd · 2014-05-27 01:52 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, if you search long and hard enough you might even find some legitimately freely distributable content.
  Until Google caved to big media, adding "filetype:torrent" to your Google search gave you pretty much the same results at Torrentz gave. There is no difference between Google and Torrentz except that Torrentz specializes in searching for .torrent files.
  I expect that Google will shortly have to cave about image searches, since basically everything returned from a Google image search is not freely distributable, and much of it is already infringing. As an example, I use Google image search to find better cover images for my eBooks, and the vast majority of results are from sites who copied the original image without permission. Personally, I don't have a problem with this, but don't indict Torrentz for doing exactly the same thing that you seem to think "real search engines" don't do.
33. Re:Criminal scum by bzipitidoo · 2014-05-27 01:56 · Score: 2
  
  You are talking like a law and order person who never questions whether copyright is good, fair, and balanced. You just jumped right to an examination of whether torrentz.eu aids others to infringe on copyrights as if its beyond question that that's Bad, and declared that its so obvious that torrentz.eu does so that anyone who tries to argue otherwise is being stupid, and that there's no doubt torrent sites are Guilty Guilty Guilty.
  Of course they link to pirated material! But is that so bad, really? It's actually the opposite. The right to share knowledge is fundamental to our civilization, and we should not allow some private interests to buffalo us into accepting a false equivalence between property rights for material things and copyright law. Every time someone asserts that copying is stealing, that's what they do. Piracy is good. The real crime is the suppression of our rights, and the criminals are not torrentz.eu operators or even users, but this police force and their real masters who seem to prefer to remain in the shadows.
  Evidently these masters don't like the glare of publicity, and the most probable reason for that dislike is that they know the public would strongly disapprove of their conduct and motives. From what I've read elsewhere in these threads, this City of London Police is a weird little police force more answerable to corporations than the public. Well now they've done it. They've called international attention upon themselves. They've clothed themselves as police, as guardians of law and order, and it's not at all clear that they should be allowed to continue to do so. I should not be too surprised to see talk of reining in this "police" force and forcing them back under the rock from which they crawled. And if they won't back down, then they will be changed, perhaps disbanded.
  
  --
  Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
34. Re:Criminal scum by nabsltd · 2014-05-27 01:57 · Score: 1
  
  You'd have to be a complete idiot to think that the users actually want those cat pictures rather than the copyright infringing files.
  Those cat pictures are also very likely copyrighted, and might even be infringing themselves.
  Seriously, don't people understand that essentially everything returned from a search is copyrighted, and there is absolutely no way to know for sure if similar content at one link is infringing while another link is not. For a good example, look at all the bogus DMCA takedown requests based on simple keyword searches. Many times the content isn't infringing, and in some cases takedown requests have been issued by big media for sites they directly control.
35. Re:Criminal scum by Arker · 2014-05-27 01:58 · Score: 1
  
  The store analogy is not apt, however. They are not selling torrents, they arent hosting torrents, it's a straight search engine.
  
  --
  =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
  Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
36. Re:Criminal scum by nabsltd · 2014-05-27 02:00 · Score: 1
  
  Google does not host the content either.
  So YouTube is just a collection of pointers to data held on non-Google servers?
  Then, too, there's Google's cache of web crawling, which has sometimes allowed me to access something when the site is down for whatever reason, including a DMCA-style takedown. Google hosts a lot of content, and a lot of it is infringing. Google has had lawsuits claiming that their search crawler is copyright infringement by itself, even if results aren't returned for that site.
37. Re:Criminal scum by Threni · 2014-05-27 02:00 · Score: 1
  
  So the naughty torrent sites add a "submit a torrent" link (and add a bunch of linux .isos for good measure). What percentage of the torrents they "host" have to be legit because it stops being a naughty torrent tracker? Or is it about the takedown procedure?
38. Re:Criminal scum by Arker · 2014-05-27 02:14 · Score: 1
  
  "Torrentz.eu on the other hand probably do not honour take down requests" They could not if they wanted to, they do not host any content, remember?
  
  --
  =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
  Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
39. Re:Criminal scum by 91degrees · 2014-05-27 02:22 · Score: 1
  
  I have no problem with the argument that the registrar shouldn't take down domains based on a police complaint, or that copyright is itself wrong. I mean I will agree with the first and have somewhat complex views on the second, but they're largely based on opinion, so will accept that people disagree.
  
  Painting torrentz.eu as an innocent party here doesn't seem to be a particularly credible complaint. If it were to go to court, based on the law as is written, rather than what I think it should be, I have no doubt that torrentz.eu would be seen as infringing copyright material.
40. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-27 02:25 · Score: 1
  
  That's more of a characteristic of the torrent technology. The data is always distributed among clients, so there's no central party to host the data anyway. But in practice the party offering the .torrent files or magnet links is providing the access to the data, and making the piracy possible.
41. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-27 02:26 · Score: 1
  
  So to refine my comment, I still think that Torrentz.eu cannot directly be blamed for anything, because they are just a meta-search engine anyway.
42. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-27 02:35 · Score: 1
  
  Googlebots index web pages automatically and users can post any kind of content to YouTube. Google simply does not have the time to manually check if any item is copyright-infringing or not. That's why they have to rely on deleting data on copyright violation complaints sent by the authors.
  Look, I know that a lot of pirated material slips into Google's indexes, but that does not justify a service like Torrentz.eu or The Pirate Bay, which deliberately have their main focus on pirated stuff.
43. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-27 02:40 · Score: 1
  
  Over 90% of the material would have to be legit.
44. Re:Criminal scum by gnupun · 2014-05-27 02:50 · Score: 1
  
  They could not if they wanted to, they do not host any content, remember?
  
  So, would it be legal to have a website that posted contact details (name, contact phone #, email) of assassins for hire? The site owners/creators are not involved in killing anyone, so it should be legal, right?
  This "not hosting pirated content, only the location of it" argument is complete lawyeristic bullshit, akin to finding legal loopholes.
45. Re:Criminal scum by king+neckbeard · 2014-05-27 03:03 · Score: 1
  
  torrentz.eu does one better, they don't even have any content. They merely link to sites that provide means to download various media through a bittorrent client. Linking to a link should be safe territory.
  
  --
  This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
46. Re:Criminal scum by 91degrees · 2014-05-27 03:18 · Score: 1
  
  Is there literally no data on their servers? How does it index its search results?
47. Re:Criminal scum by bzipitidoo · 2014-05-27 03:19 · Score: 1
  
  I have no doubt that torrentz.eu would be seen as infringing copyright material.
  I'm not so sure. Torrent sites merely link to material that may or may not be mostly copyrighted; they do not host it themselves.
  
  If it were to go to court, based on the law as is written
  Possibly even here, they would be declared innocent. But the law may have clauses that declare activities like merely linking, or not responding to takedown requests in a timely fashion, are infringing, and they'd be found guilty. Or the legal system may feel pressured to find them guilty even if the law doesn't have any such clauses. Hard to guess how a court case would turn out.
  As to views on copyright, I too have at least one complication I haven't worked out, which is that copyleft depends on copyright. I would like to see copyright abolished. Patents too. But I like copyleft, and would like some means of keeping that viable. I think the intent of copyleft can be preserved through other means, and we can repeal copyright law. Then we could at last have our digital public library. As to how artists would make a living without copyright, I think there are sufficient other ways that they could be fairly compensated, even better than they are now under our current very poor system.
  
  --
  Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
48. Re:Criminal scum by 91degrees · 2014-05-27 03:23 · Score: 1
  
  I'm not so sure. Torrent sites merely link to material that may or may not be mostly copyrighted; they do not host it themselves.
  
  This seems to be largely irrelevant from a legal point of view. I've not heard of a situation where linking to copyrighted files was seen as a defence. On the contrary, YouTube does host copyright infringing files, but seems to be in the clear legally because they're fairly active in removing them when they're made aware of them. Google itself will remove infringing links if it is made aware of them.
49. Re:Criminal scum by whoever57 · 2014-05-27 03:26 · Score: 1
  
  These criminal scum need to be stopped. The City of London Police are abusing their power to enforce civil matters and shut down legitimate search engines.
  One of the residents of the City of London needs to challenge the voting arrangements (specifically, the allocation of votes) for the City of London through the EU courts. I expect that the current system would be deemed illegal.
  
  --
  The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
50. Re:Criminal scum by TubeSteak · 2014-05-27 03:30 · Score: 1
  
  Wait, this search engine located at youtube.com - is that not primarly used for pirating music and videos? At least that is what I use it for, almost to 99%. And youtube.com is a service run by Google.
  Google gives copyright holders the option to collect any advertising revenue from infringing content.
  Torrentz.eu... not so much.
  
  --
  [Fuck Beta]
  o0t!
51. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-27 03:37 · Score: 1
  
  What about selling counterfeit products?
52. Re:Criminal scum by metrix007 · 2014-05-27 03:54 · Score: 1
  
  Can you prove that? The site is geared towards torrents, but it doesn't imply the legality of those torrents.
  If the site happens to have mainly illegal torrents, that is not a fault of the site.
  
  --
  If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
53. Re:Criminal scum by metrix007 · 2014-05-27 04:01 · Score: 1
  
  Show your math, please.
  
  --
  If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
54. Re:Criminal scum by metrix007 · 2014-05-27 04:02 · Score: 1
  
  How are they not real police? They have been given police powers.
  
  --
  If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
55. Re:Criminal scum by sadboyzz · 2014-05-27 04:23 · Score: 1
  
  No, there is a big difference because Google's main intent is not to promote piracy.
  
  I think what torrentz.eu promotes is simply the sharing of digital content, with or without the copyright holder's consent, not robbery and violence at sea. I could be wrong though.
56. Re:Criminal scum by westlake · 2014-05-27 04:36 · Score: 1
  
  Wait, this search engine located at youtube.com - is that not primarly used for pirating music and videos?
  Disney's Frozen ''Let It Go'' Sequence Performed by Idina Menzel
  Licensed by Disney for distribution through YouTube.
  239.7 million views.
  Searching YouTube for all things Frozen will return 23 million hits, a quarter million hits for the music and lyrics alone, again, all licensed content or "fair use."
57. Re:Criminal scum by CurryCamel · 2014-05-27 04:42 · Score: 1
  
  Why would linking to links be any safer, legally? Is it not the criminal [sic?] intent that is the differentiator here. Google lacks it, torrentz.eu has [1] it.
  [1] I actually don't know. torrentz.eu cannot be reached right now, so I cannot gauge their attitude. Who knows, perhaps they also have a take-down notice page?
58. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-27 04:49 · Score: 1
  
  What math? I just made up a number that felt good to me.
59. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-27 04:51 · Score: 1
  
  Most of the torrent sites in Torrentz's index contain mostly pirated stuff.
60. Re:Criminal scum by houghi · 2014-05-27 04:51 · Score: 1
  
  Google already filters content (Try looking for porn images) they are able to filter torrents as well: harry potter filetype:torrent shows that they are unwilling to do so.
  I also looked at torrenz.eu and I did not find that they are promoting piracy. They are a seachengine. Yes, they are focussed on torrents. Just read https://torrentz.eu/help
  The real issue here is however not if what they do is legal or not and if it is, so is what Google is doing. The issue is that the police abused their power.
  This is a standard way for police to try to get things done. This is NOT illegal and THAT is the reasl problem. From torrentfreak.com t the first instance of a website being confirmed as providing copyright infringing content, the site owner is contacted by officers at PIPCU and offered the opportunity to engage with the police, to correct their behaviour and to begin to operate legitimately. which means that the police decide who is guilty and who is not. That is NOT their job. What they must do is see if they THINK a crime has been done and then ask if that was reala the case or not and THAT is what the court is for. They will be deciding what action to take.
  
  --
  Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
61. Re:Criminal scum by CurryCamel · 2014-05-27 05:05 · Score: 1
  
  Google gives copyright holders the option to collect any advertising revenue from infringing content.
  That's fairly recent. Less than a year? For a decade, they did not. Also, any sort of decency requires that one asks the copyright holder first, before starting to distribute the copyrighted material...
  
  Torrentz.eu... not so much.
  So if torrentz.eu would offer ad revenue to the copyright holder, all would be ok? The copyright holder has no say in the matter?
62. Re:Criminal scum by CurryCamel · 2014-05-27 05:09 · Score: 1
  
  I'm sure there were quite a bit of legit stuff on torrentz.eu, too. I don't see how you can extrapolate from one legit video to them all.
  Also, I don't believe you actually went trhough all those 23M hits this quickly.
63. Re:Criminal scum by king+neckbeard · 2014-05-27 05:18 · Score: 1
  
  And where does that metric come from?
  
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64. Re:Criminal scum by king+neckbeard · 2014-05-27 05:37 · Score: 1
  
  Contributory infringement exists only in US case law, and much of it used a ridiculous argument that defies previous precedent. IIRC, linking sites have been explicitly ruled to not violate copyright law in the UK. So, we have a weird corporate/government entity that has no jurisdiction here claiming that they should be able to stop a site that is actually in compliance with their national laws. So, why should anybody be listening to these asshats?
  
  --
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65. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-27 05:53 · Score: 1
  
  All right, so the point is, if something like 95% of a torrent site typically is pirated stuff, it does not change the profile of the site much if you toss some Linux ISOs in the mix. Also, Linux distros typically have their own torrent trackers, which is the preferable download source anyway.
66. Re:Criminal scum by Threni · 2014-05-27 06:13 · Score: 1
  
  Do you think 90% of what Google points to/make available/caches is legal everywhere?
67. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-27 06:35 · Score: 1
  
  Good point, and I don't know what the accurate number is, but I still suggest that primarily the content indexed by Google is legal.
68. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-27 06:36 · Score: 1
  
  Why not? At least it would be a fair argument for their defense.
69. Re:Criminal scum by king+neckbeard · 2014-05-27 07:18 · Score: 1
  
  One, there are a couple of metrics that could be used for what makes up the pecentage, and the accuracy of said metrics is not great by any means. Furthermore, the bar set in the Betamax case was that something 'merely be capable of substantial noninfringing uses.' That's a pretty low bar that this site definitely meets.
  
  --
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70. Re:Criminal scum by darnkitten · 2014-05-27 08:09 · Score: 1
  
  Ad revenue?
71. Re:Criminal scum by xvan · 2014-05-27 08:26 · Score: 1
  
  How many times did you cross child porn indexed by google?
  How many times did you cross with torrents indexed by google?
  
  Do you really believe that google isn't able to block torrents? It's just not worth the money... DMCA safe harbour rules are on their side, and they'd only loose eyeballs + money tightening their filters.
  
  Have you also questioned why if its legal to stream media from youtube / spotify. And It's legal to record it for personal purposes. Why It's illegal to aquire it from "alternative ways".
72. Re:Criminal scum by dkettmann76 · 2014-05-27 09:53 · Score: 1
  
  Quoted: Which of torrentz.eu cannot do even if they wanted to, as they don't host any content.
  Except that they can and they do, search "ttc" and at the bottom notice the "50 results removed in compliance with EUCD / DMCA".
73. Re:Criminal scum by PReDiToR · 2014-05-27 11:16 · Score: 1
  
  Clear your cache.
  
  WFM on VM.
  
  --
  
  Do not meddle in the affairs of geeks for they are subtle and quick to anger
74. Re:Criminal scum by tepples · 2014-05-27 12:54 · Score: 1
  
  I think what torrentz.eu promotes is simply the sharing of digital content, with or without the copyright holder's consent
  Trouble is that "without" violates law.
  
  not robbery and violence at sea.
  Then allow me to rephrase jones_supa's comment: "No, there is a big difference because Google's main intent is not to promote infringement of copyright."
75. Re:Criminal scum by SeaFox · 2014-05-27 17:41 · Score: 1
  
  The store analogy is not apt, however. They are not selling torrents, they arent hosting torrents, it's a straight search engine.
  
  No, it's very apt. The fact they have some legal content doesn't excuse them from everything else.
  Also: why do we need a search engine for finding Linux torrents? And why does the Pirate Bay and KickAssTorrents need to track Linux torrents? Wouldn't the most legitimate place to get a Linux torrent be from the site of said distro?
76. Re:Criminal scum by Camembert · 2014-05-27 20:40 · Score: 1
  
  You could turn it around and say: "If the material is illegal, then why would you want to access it? Law-abiding citizens wouldn't. For law-abiding citizens the site does not need to exist."
77. Re:Criminal scum by Ash+Vince · 2014-05-28 00:04 · Score: 1
  
  "Torrentz.eu on the other hand probably do not honour take down requests"
  They could not if they wanted to, they do not host any content, remember?
  
  They could remove the links to it just like Google does.
  
  --
  I dont read /. to RTFA, I read /. to offend people in ignorance.
78. Re:Criminal scum by stoatwblr · 2014-05-28 06:34 · Score: 1
  
  Correct.
  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
  It's not a good idea to wander round the City of London wearing a Tshirt or carrying a sign saying "Scientology is an evil cult" - you WILL be arrested.
  (It's happened a few times in the past, but this is the most recent example I could find)
  http://www.liveleak.com/view?i...
  http://www.theguardian.com/uk/...
  Thankfully the UK crown prosecution service has more sense:
  http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/No...'
  Lots of links off the bottome of the last article.
79. Re:Criminal scum by stoatwblr · 2014-05-28 06:35 · Score: 1
  
  There are fewer than 11,000 residents of the City of London and their votes are far outweighed by the corporate ones.
80. Re:Criminal scum by Jack+Griffin · 2014-05-28 20:41 · Score: 1
  
  Well if you RTFA, you'd know that the watchers in this case exist in the form of lawyers and a courthouse. Yes, laywers saved the day and restored your freedom. How does that make you feel?
81. Re:Criminal scum by metrix007 · 2014-06-04 07:27 · Score: 1
  
  That just says they are maybe corrupt. Not illegal or illegitimate.
  
  --
  If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
82. Re:Criminal scum by metrix007 · 2014-06-04 07:29 · Score: 1
  
  Perhaps there was a miscommunication. The site having mainly torrents of pirated stuff does not mean the torrent index site is geared towards piracy, i.e. advocating it.
  
  --
  If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
83. Re:Criminal scum by metrix007 · 2014-06-04 07:46 · Score: 1
  
  Ahh. Well, that's a ridiculously high number. Might want to rethink that.
  
  --
  If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
Since when... by CaptainOfSpray · 2014-05-26 21:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

...does City of London police have any jurisdiction outside City of London? Registrar should not have caved in.

I should like to point out that I, a registered voter and taxpayer, have never been asked whether I want my taxes spent on something so monumentally stupid as a Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit. And I suspect that its creation was an idea planted, bought, and paid for by You-Know-Who.

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1. Re:Since when... by Pieroxy · 2014-05-26 21:24 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  ...does City of London police have any jurisdiction outside City of London? Registrar should not have caved in.
  I should like to point out that I, a registered voter and taxpayer, have never been asked whether I want my taxes spent on something so monumentally stupid as a Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit. And I suspect that its creation was an idea planted, bought, and paid for by You-Know-Who.
  Voldemort? Already?
  
  --
  Write boring code, not shiny code!
2. Re:Since when... by Grantbridge · 2014-05-26 21:42 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  City of London Police are a very strange entity, since the Corporation of London isn't really a democratic body, and their police force should be viewed as serving the interests of their corporate masters, rather than the people at large. As such, I wouldn't obey any instruction from them without a court order.
  http://www.theguardian.com/com...
3. Re:Since when... by serviscope_minor · 2014-05-26 23:03 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I should like to point out that I, a registered voter and taxpayer, have never been asked whether I want my taxes spent
  IO take it you don't really know much about the City of London, then. Since I now walk through it daily I thought I'd do a bit of reading. It is a very, very strange place (and the police are an arm of it). To refer to it as "well dodgy" is a massive understatement.
  So firstly, it's older than the England you know: the administrative system (known as the Corporation of London) predates the Normal conquest of 1066, though they had their charter re issued after since it was lost at some point. The Corporation of London is some weird hybrid between a local council, an ancient government, a company and a secret society.
  This means it's embedded in the legal system in weird and woderful ways. For example, they have a representative in the house of commons (not an MP) to make sure that parliament is acting in their interests. Also, the registered voters not only include humans, but businesses too and in proportion to the number of employees within the city. This means that bisuness vastly out vote the local residents. And for part of this you're only eligible to run for office if you've already been given the freedom of the city, making it a massively closed system.
  The dodgyness continues. The manifestation of this in the dody dealings of the City of London police is only the tiniest tip of a very large iceberg. About the best thing you can say about the City of London police is they sometimes wear those rather anachronistic Policeman's capes which look kinda cool.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
4. Re:Since when... by serviscope_minor · 2014-05-26 23:12 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  their corporate masters
  In case anyone reading this believes this ios hyperbole or some left wing rant, it is literally true. The companies in the City get to vote in proportion to the number of employees and so vastly out vote the citizens.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
5. Re:Since when... by mwvdlee · 2014-05-26 23:47 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  In case anyone reading this believes this ios hyperbole or some left wing rant, it is literally true. The companies in the City get to vote in proportion to the number of employees and so vastly out vote the citizens.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
  civilian votes: 7.000
  corporate votes: 32.000
  Basically, corporations determine what the City of London Police's policies and priorities are.
  
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6. Re:Since when... by camperdave · 2014-05-27 00:08 · Score: 1
  
  I should like to point out that I, a registered voter and taxpayer, have never been asked whether I want my taxes spent on something so monumentally stupid as a Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit.
  
  Yes, you have. It's called an election.
  
  --
  When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
7. Re:Since when... by coofercat · 2014-05-27 00:22 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Going on... The City of London is often also called "the square mile" because it's a really very small part of the blob of the UK called "London". All of the London councils dwarf the City in both number of people resident and square miles covered. The rest of london has somewhere between 6 and 10 million residents.
  The City has a population of something like 7000 people, yet has something like >5,000,000 visitors every working day. To some extent, it makes sense not to let 7000 people define the local government policy for so may visitors (just about all of whom work for one of the areas employers).
  However, by the same token, those employers shouldn't be defining local government (or in this case, local police) policy. The City Police have asked for things like this before, and mostly been rebuffed, as seems reasonable, given who/what they represent.
  As the GP notes, We the People have never been asked if we'd like this sort of thing to go on - but then we actually don't pay for the City Police directly, as it is really paid for by the Corporation of London, who are paid for by the businesses within it. Hence we have this fscked up setup where there's a (small) police force for hire by whomever pays the most. That wouldn't be so bad if they just stayed in the square mile, but sadly they're starting to see their remit as "the Internet" as well. We the People could argue that the actions of the City Police brings the actions of the wider police force into disrepute though, I guess (not such a bad idea actually, now I think of it).
  The moral of the story is: If you receive an "official" communication from some police force or other, politely decline to do what they ask unless they can provide a court order. This will keep you out of trouble for longer than trying to be "helpful". Our judges might not be perfect, but for the most part they won't furnish the City Police with a court order for something as flimsy as this.
8. Re:Since when... by Ash+Vince · 2014-05-27 00:29 · Score: 1
  
  ...does City of London police have any jurisdiction outside City of London? Registrar should not have caved in.
  I should like to point out that I, a registered voter and taxpayer, have never been asked whether I want my taxes spent on something so monumentally stupid as a Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit. And I suspect that its creation was an idea planted, bought, and paid for by You-Know-Who.
  Yes you were, just like I was. We both got the opportunity to vote in the last general election where we got to pick which bunch of toerags we wanted to rule us. The fact that not one single party that had loosening copyright law in its manifesto stood any chance of being elected simply means that most of the UK population do not give a toss about this either way unfortunately.
  
  --
  I dont read /. to RTFA, I read /. to offend people in ignorance.
9. Re:Since when... by mlk · 2014-05-27 00:59 · Score: 2
  
  > That just isn't how it works. However, you probably should make your MP aware of what is wrong
  https://www.writetothem.com/
  > and Boris too
  https://www.london.gov.uk/cont... (includes an email address)
  You can also contact the Lord Mayor (City of London) spokesmen.
  http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk...
  > It can't be much harder than posting to Slashdot can it?
  Not much harder but you have to sacrifice anonymity and supply a UK postal address.
  > Obviously I didn't read the article. And am just rambling.
  Best way to do it.
  
  --
  Wow, I should not post when knackered.
10. Re:Since when... by king+neckbeard · 2014-05-27 03:41 · Score: 1
  
  Except for the fact that the PIPCU is part of the City of London, which isn't elected really elected by citizens in a meaningful way. Also, the UK voting system is FPTP, which means that if there are strong ties with an interested group to the major political parties, the will of the people is pretty easy to ignore on all but the most important and overwhelming issues.
  
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11. Re:Since when... by keytoe · 2014-05-27 04:31 · Score: 1
  How is this not 'voting twice'?
  
  1) Individual votes their personal choice. Turnout is poor due to systemic disenfranchisement.
  2) Individual votes again, but this time their boss chooses. Turnout is effectively mandatory and close to 100%.
  That's just madness.
  --
  Culture is more than commerce
12. Re:Since when... by Ash+Vince · 2014-05-28 00:03 · Score: 1
  
  Except for the fact that the PIPCU is part of the City of London, which isn't elected really elected by citizens in a meaningful way.
  We have very little say over how any of the police work democratically. Even if PIPCU was part of the Met it would be no different.
  
  . Also, the UK voting system is FPTP, which means that if there are strong ties with an interested group to the major political parties, the will of the people is pretty easy to ignore on all but the most important and overwhelming issues.
  I know this, but the british public also voted to retain that system recently if you remember.
  I would also point out that if enough of the british public actually felt strongly in favour of copyright reform then one of the major parties would look at adopting it and working it into their manifesto to try and win votes. The problem however is that if any party did this they would be savaged by the Murdoch press as he stands to lose out by copyright reform.
  I also think that most of the voting public actually support the idea of copyright and are far more against reform than some of us on the other side of the spectrum like to acknowledge. Once you put it to the british public as "Ensuring our digital economy is not undermined by copyright infringement" they soon think things like relaxing copyright law are a bad idea. You can be damn sure that is how the media would put it to the public when they have so much to lose by copyright reform.
  
  --
  I dont read /. to RTFA, I read /. to offend people in ignorance.
13. Re:Since when... by king+neckbeard · 2014-05-28 00:48 · Score: 1
  
  I know this, but the british public also voted to retain that system recently if you remember.
  Not being a Brit, I didn't know that. What system was the proposed replacement?
  
  I would also point out that if enough of the british public actually felt strongly in favour of copyright reform then one of the major parties would look at adopting it and working it into their manifesto to try and win votes. The problem however is that if any party did this they would be savaged by the Murdoch press as he stands to lose out by copyright reform.
  So, a major party could possibly adopt it, but they couldn't do so without major consequences.
  
  I also think that most of the voting public actually support the idea of copyright and are far more against reform than some of us on the other side of the spectrum like to acknowledge. Once you put it to the british public as "Ensuring our digital economy is not undermined by copyright infringement" they soon think things like relaxing copyright law are a bad idea. You can be damn sure that is how the media would put it to the public when they have so much to lose by copyright reform.
  Yes, if you frame it right, you can get the public to support just about anything. That's why polling is so often useless. I'd say that, in practice, public support for copyright is much weaker than the law as it stands.
  
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14. Re:Since when... by Reziac · 2014-05-28 04:44 · Score: 1
  
  I'm wondering if that's not so much dodgy as just the logical successor to the medieval city-state, which was often built around a specific business, obviously for the benefit of that business and not for that of latecomers.
  
  --
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15. Re:Since when... by Ash+Vince · 2014-05-29 00:12 · Score: 1
  
  Not being a Brit, I didn't know that. What system was the proposed replacement?
  Sorry, I thought maybe you were as you seemed to have an idea of how our political system worked in a way that most Americans do not.
  The proposed replacement was some shitty, over complicated, Alternative Vote ( http://www.electoral-reform.or... ) approach unfortunately, not Proportional Representation like the rest of Europe uses. It would not really have been much better as it still would have resulted in a single party ending up with all the power, unlike PR which forces the ruling party to work with losing parties if they got a sizeable share of the vote.
  
  Yes, if you frame it right, you can get the public to support just about anything. That's why polling is so often useless. I'd say that, in practice, public support for copyright is much weaker than the law as it stands.
  I was not talking about polling, I was talking about how if there was ever any sort of referendum on copyright law that most of the British public could be pushed into supporting the current status quo by our media running lots of stories about how "copyright law is needed for our digital economy" in the run up to it. This would also apply if one of the parties likely to win any votes in our electoral system changed it's stance to support copyright reform.
  
  --
  I dont read /. to RTFA, I read /. to offend people in ignorance.
Re:Republicans Attack the Economy by MrL0G1C · 2014-05-26 22:03 · Score: 1

"Finally something is being done to put these rich capitalist evil men in their place and to raise the wages and living conditions of the poor."
Eh? The (completely off-topic) points mandate total stagnation and mandate that the poor stay poor. No politician would ever go ahead with it as it is completely unworkable and senseless, no-one at any level of society would like it.
Are the points pulled from some Sci-Fi dystopia story?

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It's Back ... by ellocotheinsane · 2014-05-26 22:15 · Score: 5, Insightful

Torrentz.eu is back in full swing (1200 hours CET on May 27.) ...
1. Re:It's Back ... by bigalzzz · 2014-05-26 23:39 · Score: 2
  
  Sure they'll benefit from all the free publicity, sometimes you can't help but think people do more harm to themselves than good
Ah, Pirates by rmdingler · 2014-05-26 22:51 · Score: 1

One could mention many lovable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing, it was his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon.

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I love this wording: by jacob8404 · 2014-05-26 23:01 · Score: 1

"... evidence indicating how the site is involved in illegal copyright infringement."
Does it mean they don't go after legal copyright infringement? Or only after those who infringe on illegal copyrights?
Re:Republicans Attack the Economy by _merlin · 2014-05-26 23:07 · Score: 2

It's taken from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. The Conservopedia people worship this book.
Really? by bhima · 2014-05-26 23:24 · Score: 1

I just now went there and it looks up to me.

--
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
1. Re:Really? by perryizgr8 · 2014-05-27 00:05 · Score: 1
  
  ditto \(o_O)/
  
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  Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Do we have a better file sharing solution? by Katatsumuri · 2014-05-26 23:37 · Score: 5, Interesting

Granted, this whack-a-mole game with individual torrent sites makes for a fun show sometimes. But I find it embarrassing that the online community has to work around these issues time after time, and that some good people get caught up in legal battles.
Are there any good alternatives to bittorrent for private, anonymous file search and exchange? I heard about several "darknet" projects, but they never seem to gain traction for some reason. Given a huge number of hobbyist hackers who support free exchange of information, I am surprised.
Is there a fundamental reason why we cannot have free, anonymous file exchange? Or is everyone just happy with the status quo?
1. Re:Do we have a better file sharing solution? by ultranova · 2014-05-27 01:11 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Is there a fundamental reason why we cannot have free, anonymous file exchange?
  
  Most people have things they don't want to have freely available (child porn, for example) and prioritize suppressing them over free availability of other things, thus they shy away from free, anonymous file exchanges.
  That's the problem with anarchy in general: everyone's free to do what they want, including things I don't want them to do.
  
  --
  Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
2. Re:Do we have a better file sharing solution? by countach · 2014-05-27 01:43 · Score: 2
  
  bittorrent is not a scheme for file search. It's a data transfer protocol. How you find torrents is not within the realm of bit torrent. If your aim is to suck down huge amounts of data, there is no competitor.
3. Re:Do we have a better file sharing solution? by Katatsumuri · 2014-05-27 02:19 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, I know. I was referring to the bittorrent community in general, including the index websites, forums with links, seeders, etc.
  In fact, it makes me wonder even more. When we already have a great data transfer protocol, and even a distributed database for hashes that makes "magnet links" work, why is there still no mainstream distributed keyword search system on top of that?
  Part of the reason could be people disappointed with spammy eDonkey experience. Another part, as one poster here mentioned, is that people don't want to join networks which may be distributing objectionable content. But both these reasons don't sound so absolutely unbeatable by some creative filtering and public moderation.
4. Re:Do we have a better file sharing solution? by Katatsumuri · 2014-05-27 02:36 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Because the software market would completely tank if large file sharing was legal.
  There is so much wrong with this post:
  1. File sharing in general is legal. Sharing certain specific files may be illegal in certain jurisdictions.
  2. The legal side of the problem is separate. In many spheres of life there is an area of untracked relations between people. Small cash transfers, personal presents, favors, discussions, meetings. I understand that the governments want to control, censor and tax all of this as much as possible, and at least ask for voluntary self-reporting in many cases. But I feel this "breath room" is important to keep the society sane, and we should have an equivalent in the digital world.
  3. The software market would not tank even if file sharing became easier. There are risks in downloading software from untrusted sources, and people who can afford it (or cannot afford the risk) normally buy it. Then there is also support, upgrades, special deals and so on. Media market has more to worry about, but also not as much as they claim.
5. Re:Do we have a better file sharing solution? by Katatsumuri · 2014-05-27 03:00 · Score: 1
  
  This sounds like one of plausible reasons. I imagine this would keep me from joining one of those networks where everybody must store and share a bunch of encrypted file fragments without knowing what's inside. I would not like to facilitate in distribution of certain content in any way, nor to be potentially liable.
  But is this so fundamental? Perhaps we could develop some system where everyone can self-moderate what they share. Maybe also some sort of voting and commenting system could help.
  Building such a system is easier now that we have bittorrent and DHT. A keyword-based search layer on top of that is a smaller problem. Then, if someone is concerned about privacy flaws in bittorrent, they can also try to use it over some encrypted tunnel.
6. Re:Do we have a better file sharing solution? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-27 03:04 · Score: 1, Interesting
  
  Or is everyone just happy with the status quo?
  Let's face it: that's at least a really big factor. But as for darknets not gaining traction, that's purely a matter of point of view. I'm on some very successful and useful darknets. I just can't trust any of them very much (see below).
  Another thing going on, is that people aren't very good at learning from history and building upon existing infrastructures. PGP has incredible potential as a decentralized authentication system, and once you have one of those, you can have consensuses that are highly resistant to interference (i.e. censorship). The blockchain used by Bitcoin has some really interesting applications here as well, but people mostly just want to use it as money.
  Also, I think that among most people who think about this stuff, anonymous communication isn't a high priority. There aren't many situations where anonymity is particularly useful, and then when you start thinking about security issues (e.g. preventing monitoring, MitM, sabotage, DoS via noise/spam, etc) it works against you. It's a lot easier to solve problems when you throw out the probably-worthless-anyway anonymity requirement.
  Indeed, usually when I see something announced that is "anonymous," the first thing that pops into my head, is that the system can likely be spied upon and sabotaged fairly easily. The burden of proof is on the presenter, to show how the system can even possibly not be hopelessly broken. So far, no one has done that. And we have TOR's utterly complete failure as an example of what happens when you just gloss over this elephant.
7. Re: Do we have a better file sharing solution? by chromeronin799 · 2014-05-27 07:22 · Score: 1
  
  Torrent sync
8. Re: Do we have a better file sharing solution? by Katatsumuri · 2014-05-27 07:36 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, this actually sounds interesting for some use cases. What it lacks is keyword-based search for files shared globally by others.
9. Re:Do we have a better file sharing solution? by stoatwblr · 2014-05-28 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  The act of suppressing the damaging stuff has the counter effect that it makes finding the people who do the actual damage a LOT harder to track down.
  Almost all "normal" people who run across such material feel nauseated and will call in the police.
10. Re:Do we have a better file sharing solution? by philalethiac · 2014-05-28 08:45 · Score: 1
  
  Because the most common use/biggest market for free, anonymous file exchange is always going to be illegally sharing data. There are lots of services allowing free file exchange (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc) which aren't anonymous and it seems, by and large, there's not a great need for anonymity outside illegal data sharing. There are some other potential applications for anonymously sharing data, e.g., whistleblowing, but they're covered by sites like wikileaks (albeit the powers that be do their very best to suppress anything with that application,too).
11. Re:Do we have a better file sharing solution? by Katatsumuri · 2014-05-28 21:51 · Score: 1
  
  This would answer the question "why the government does not want us to have this". But my question was completely different.
  We have plenty of capable programmers who don't mind "illegal" data sharing, and we have millions of people who disagree strongly with the current copyright laws, for example, and having no realistic means to change the law, choose to ignore it.
  Let's set aside and not discuss the moral and legal side of this right now. We know many people exist who would support and enjoy such a system. So why has no-one managed to build it so far?
12. Re:Do we have a better file sharing solution? by strikethree · 2014-05-29 10:42 · Score: 1
  
  The software market would not tank even if file sharing became easier.
  I mostly agree.
  
  There are risks in downloading software from untrusted sources, and people who can afford it (or cannot afford the risk) normally buy it.
  Hm. Some software is so hostile from the publishers that the illegal version is safer to use. I am unsure if Starforce is still used but when I would buy a game and find that Starforce was used, I would immediately go download the warez version and use that instead. I also routinely download the warez version of software that I purchase so I can have a backup copy in perpetuity. It seems that many publishers do not want you to use their software 5 to 10 years down the line. Think of online activation and such if you can not think of any other examples.
  
  --
  "Someone needs to talk to the tree of liberty about its ghoulish drinking problem." by ohnocitizen
Torrents? Ew! by jaeztheangel · 2014-05-27 00:08 · Score: 2

The Police are well aware of the futility of this gesture; as much as they know it will please their political masters.
fuck ibtimes by X0563511 · 2014-05-27 01:00 · Score: 1

Random video auto-plays with sound, nattering about some cellphone bullshit.

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For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
1. Re:fuck ibtimes by Arker · 2014-05-27 03:17 · Score: 1
  
  Why on earth do you allow flash to auto-run in your browser to begin with?
  
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I was previously unaware of torrentz.eu by Roxoff · 2014-05-27 01:37 · Score: 2

But now, thanks to the Metropolitan Police, I've been made aware of it. That's the police having the -exact- opposite effect of the one they wanted!
Thanks, Mr Plod.

--
"Is the Chief Priest an Offlian? Do dragons explode in the wood?"
City of London Police paid by by devent · 2014-05-27 02:06 · Score: 1

Is the City of London Police paid now by ProMusic, Music Matters, FindAnyFilm, TheContentMap, and by BPI, ifpi, and Publisher Association?
I always think the first country to have a private police force would be the USA and not the UK, but here you have it.

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http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
1. Re:City of London Police paid by by Arker · 2014-05-27 02:42 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  It's a very old arrangement actually, dating back to the middle ages. 'The City of London' is not the city of London, it's a medieval corporation whose territory encompasses a small stretch of the most expensive property in London, and whose constituents are not the handful of people that live there, but the medieval guilds and the big corporations that own property there.
  
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2. Re:City of London Police paid by by devent · 2014-05-27 04:49 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, I was reading about that. Does the Police have any jurisdiction outside of the old City of London? If not, Torrentz can sue them for damages.
  
  --
  http://www.mueller-public.de - My site http://www.anr-institute.com/ - Advanced Natural Research Institute
3. Re:City of London Police paid by by Arker · 2014-05-27 05:41 · Score: 1
  
  I doubt they can sue for damages. The 'requests' this group sends out, at least the ones I have seen previously, do seem to carefully avoid claiming real authority to compel.
  
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Re:Republicans Attack the Economy by ultranova · 2014-05-27 02:10 · Score: 1

It's taken from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. The Conservopedia people worship this book.

So... does that mean we'll be seeing an Conservative Atlas Shrugged Rewrite Project soon?

--
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Mod parent interesting by Katatsumuri · 2014-05-27 03:09 · Score: 1

I also noticed the spam/"poisoning" problem with p2p networks. Using BitCoin-like algorithmic approach to solve that is a new idea to me, which I need to think more about to understand it, but it does sound interesting.
Another decentralized system where spam problem was somewhat mitigated is email. For me, SpamAssassin with its bayesian filters was a 90% fine solution, and GMail with its power of scale solved the problem for 99.9% of cases. There may be 1 in 1000 slipped spam or a false positive, but that doesn't bother me much, and it is uncomparable to the spam disaster we had in ca. 2000.
So spam and poisoning is a real problem, but not an unsolvable one.
1. Re:Mod parent interesting by sadboyzz · 2014-05-27 04:10 · Score: 1
  
  So spam and poisoning is a real problem, but not an unsolvable one.
  
  Email spam is a very different problem from p2p file sharing spam. With email, the spam filter has the luxury of getting to see the entirety of the message before deciding if it's spam. On the other hand, a p2p file sharing client only gets a filename + hash. With better heuristics it could conceivably rank the filenames based on relevance to your search term, but that is unneccessary in most cases. What's more important is to decided whether the filename actually describes the content identified by 'hash' (which could be tens to hundreds of GBs). The only reliable ways to "solve" this problem, as far as I can see, are: 1. Download the file and see for yourself (emule, gnutella, etc.) 2. Have a centralized authority/community screen the file for you (BitTorrent)
2. Re:Mod parent interesting by Katatsumuri · 2014-05-27 04:28 · Score: 1
  
  So maybe this community screening/flagging could be decentralized?
  And maybe we could still find a meaningful set of heuristics for the spam filter? Signals from users, file type, file size, first uploader location and software stack, known file checksums in the package, etc. - maybe if there are 100 carefully calibrated input signals, the detection rate would keep it usable.
  Also, AC in this thread made vague suggestions about using PGP authentication (for trusted uploaders?) and some bitcoin-like algorithm (which I unfortunately don't understand how it applies here, but maybe it makes sense to someone who creates this sort of systems).
  I obviously understand very little about the technical details of the problem, so I'm just trying to ask questions and pass around the ideas.
3. Re:Mod parent interesting by xvan · 2014-05-27 08:12 · Score: 1
  
  I see no irony... PGP Can be used for authentication for users.
  So you have descentralized authetication: PGP (to authenthicate users and files origin).
  Descentralized File sharing: Torrents
  What's lacking is a descentralized scoring system and a descentralized universal index system (I have no Idea what's the best way to implement that).
  
  Another issue is a descentralized way to track torrents health...
4. Re:Mod parent interesting by Katatsumuri · 2014-05-27 08:22 · Score: 1
  
  I agree with this. What I found ironic is Anonymous Coward saying "There aren't many situations where anonymity is particularly useful".
Mod parent interesting by Katatsumuri · 2014-05-27 03:23 · Score: 1

Another useful idea, probably from the same AC as above:

PGP has incredible potential as a decentralized authentication system, and once you have one of those, you can have consensuses that are highly resistant to interference (i.e. censorship).

There aren't many situations where anonymity is particularly useful
Now this is ironic in an AC post. Also, I don't understand your point about anonymity working against you in preventing the monitoring. Are you talking about "circle of friends" type networks?
NOT the metropolitan police! by Arker · 2014-05-27 03:28 · Score: 1

This is NOT the London Metropolitan Police. This is the Police of the City of London. Two very different animals.

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Reputation system by Katatsumuri · 2014-05-27 05:16 · Score: 1

What about a pseudonymous reputation system?
Let the uploaders voluntarily sign their uploads. Then, as the user verifies a few packages by that uploader, they assign a higher trust score to them, so their personal spam filter ranks this uploader's other packages better.
I can also have friends and trusted vendors whom I can whitelist based on their signatures.
We can also have global distributed "trust rank" for uploaders and individual packages, based on feedback from multiple users. That's not very reliable, but possibly useful as one of spam filter heuristics.
Then, we can also have pseudonymous meta-moderation, where users who consistently flag good and bad packages are trusted more about their future feedback.
1. Re:Reputation system by Reziac · 2014-05-28 04:39 · Score: 1
  
  But some torrent sites already have user-rating systems.
  I don't really know how P2P poisoning is done -- can someone explain? I'd think a poisoner could download whatever, then replace the bits with garbage bits (I understand this can be done without invalidating the hash) and offer it back to the world, hoping no one would notice until it was widely disseminated.
  The only time I've received a bad torrent, I was pulling some rather old film of no interest to modern marketing, and when it finally arrived, it proved to be World War Z. And I'm like, WTF??
  
  --
  ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
2. Re:Reputation system by Katatsumuri · 2014-05-28 21:40 · Score: 1
  
  P2P poisoning is done by malicious servers that announce millions of connected users and return results for all sorts of keyword queries with fake filenames and spammy or malicious content.
  I was suggesting a reputation system based on signatures as a possible part of a solution to this problem in P2P networks. The rating system was not the main goal of my suggestion but a means to end, so saying, "But some torrent sites already have user-rating systems," is missing the point.
3. Re:Reputation system by Reziac · 2014-05-29 02:54 · Score: 1
  
  I'm confuzzled. Are you suggesting a signature that would be non-anonymous, or pulled from a database, or..??
  [Not my field, obviously, but doesn't hurt to know these things.]
  
  --
  ~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Easy solution: local DNS file by WillAffleckUW · 2014-05-27 06:49 · Score: 1

Seriously, you do know that it's just a table lookup for routing, right?
DNS - Directory Name Service.

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-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Re:Republicans Attack the Economy by _merlin · 2014-05-27 09:40 · Score: 1

The funny thing is, Jesus was a bit of a socialist and supported paying taxes, and a lot of the Old Testament is more than a little socialist. Conservopedia people would need to rewrite all that out of the Bible if they wanted a book they could truly believe in. TBH I think more of them have probably read Ayn Rand that have read the Bible.
What is ttc? by tepples · 2014-05-27 12:51 · Score: 1

What does "ttc" mean in the context of most results on Torrentz? Does it have anything to do with the famously litigious video game developer The Tetris Company LLC?
1. Re:What is ttc? by dkettmann76 · 2014-05-28 04:55 · Score: 1
  
  ttc = The Teaching Company, now named The Great Courses. Very possible they are hard asses similar to what you mention.
Bitch to the local media by tepples · 2014-05-27 14:28 · Score: 1

I should like to point out that I, a registered voter and taxpayer, have never been asked whether I want my taxes spent on something so monumentally stupid as a Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit.
I know Great Britain and the rest of the EU aren't quite as protective of free speech as the United States, but I think it's still legal to write your MP and local news organisations.