The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK ISPs, court rules

[borgs8472]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17894176
http://torrentfreak.com/uk-isps-must-ce ... es-120430/

File-sharing site The Pirate Bay must be blocked by UK internet service providers, the High Court has ruled.

The Swedish website hosts links to download mostly-pirated free music and video.

Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media must all prevent their users from accessing the site.

"Sites like The Pirate Bay destroy jobs in the UK and undermine investment in new British artists," the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) said.

For some reason I thought it wouldn't come to this in the UK.

Interestingly, it took me reading the torrentfreak article to realise we already have a reverse proxy up at:
http://tpb.pirateparty.org.uk/

I assume the IT team takes credit, do we have an internal FAQ on that?

It's on the same box as our site (same IP)... maybe time to give it reserved resources so it can't impact site performance?

[aramoro]

That is a surprise that you have a reverse proxy already, I take back my comments in a previous thread questioning if you would want to be so closely linked to the site. Clearly you do.

[Duke]

Of course this would come to the UK; it started 6 months ago with the Newzbin2 block, and blocking The Pirate Bay was pretty much a given after February declaratory judgment. Particularly as no one was given the opportunity to argue against the block.

[aramoro]

Don't you risk having the Pirate Parties own website blocked here?

[borgs8472]

*grits teeth*

I'm going to have to agree with aramoro <shame>

It's less than a year ago that linking to external sites that overtly discussed file sharing was banned for the forums, much to my annoyance. Now, liability wise, especially after the block comes into force (depending on how high we rank as a mirror), PPUK will be effectively hosting the entire contents of TPB from its domain, providing a level of approval of the contents through that process.

Now I think this is something we should be doing, but I find it completely inconsistent with previous precedents and discussions had surrounding overt discussion of copyright infringing content, neutrality with regards to supporting particular file sharing sites and general separation of the politics of file sharing with the process, a line we had been careful to walk up to this point.

I expect an official comment on the act of hosting this proxy, as well as its implication for party and site policy shortly.

[Gavman]

Well since we don't host anything not sure how applicable that actually is.

A proxy is a proxy is a proxy....

The proxy was setup in solidarity with our dutch brethren before this story broke in the UK

As the PirateBay has not in itself been ruled against in the UK (NO there is not a court case against TPB - this ruling was to ISPs to block the site).

There is no law that makes it illegal to host proxies in the UK, if so please feel free to direct me to it.

[borgs8472]

My issue isn't the legality at all, and as I said, I think it's something we should do.

My issue is that is appears inconsistent with precedent set with regards to forum discussion and linking policy, as well as policy of the party not endorsing specific file sharing sites. Ideally I'd like the inconsistency acknowledged, a new precedent set and a revised policies on both fronts allowed.

[Duke]

As the PirateBay has not in itself been ruled against in the UK (NO there is not a court case against TPB - this ruling was to ISPs to block the site).

Not quite true: "both users and the operators of [The Pirate Bay] infringe the copyrights of the [major record labesls] (and those they represent) in the UK," from Dramatico Entertainment Ltd & Ors v British Sky Broadcasting Ltd & Ors [2012] EWHC 268 (Ch). That was a ruling against TPB, although due to the odd way it came about, no one from TPB was involved, nor did anyone turn up to defend it.

On the legal side of running a proxy, I noted some of the possible legal issues to the NEC, but need more of the technical details before I can offer any real suggestions or advice.

As for issues of our website being blocked, I would need to see the order itself in order to make any real comment on the matter, however an order blocking the entire Pirate Party website would almost certainly be unlawful. Whether or not that would stop an ISP from blocking us interpreting the existing order is another matter. As for the legality of proxies etc., there's legal action going on at the moment between PPNL and BREIN over this precise issue, I will be watching that closely.

In terms of policy and so on, it might be nice to get some sort of statement from the NEC about this (perhaps after they've discussed some of the legal stuff implications), although I understand they will be pretty busy for the next couple of days with the elections.

[aramoro]

Blocking the whole site may or may not happen but it's entirely possible an ISP will see the proxy and block the IP Address, then you have to fight to get it unblocked.

My problem isn't really that you link to the Pirate Bay, it's that you pick one Commercial Entity over another. I mean why The Pirate Bay? Why not Demonoid or EZTV, where's the TVShack proxy etc. The close alignment between The Pirate Party and The Pirate Bay just makes you look more and more like the political front for a company. In fact the reverse proxy costs you money and make The Pirate Bay money which is just a bit wacky.

[tdobson]

How is it different to mirroring wikileaks?

Strategically, I think it's a beneficial move.

fyi, personal mirror is here: http://tpb.culturejacker.com (and personal WL proxy http://wikileaks.culturejacker.com )

From a technical perspective, the most expensive resource in running any kind of these proxies is human-time.

[aramoro]

How is it different to mirroring wikileaks?

Wikileaks is non-commercial.

[topperfalkon]

I'd argue that TPB isn't strictly commercial either. They don't gain financially for works shared using their service.

[Jordy_Pirate]

I must say, well done! If only the pirate party were in Northern Ireland

[bzdemes]

Glad to see there is already a proxy up for TPB. I think its exactly the sort of thing this party should do. TPB is a political symbol as much as a commercial website. Blocking websites doesn't work and fails to address the issue. Times have changed businesses need to catch up and the government and courts shouldn't help them try and turn back time.

[lhsi]

Censorship is censorship. I can't see why it should be seen as OK to censor a commercial site if it isn't OK to censor a non-commercial one.

The status of the site is immaterial; it is the censorship that is objectionable.

[borgs8472]

On the legal side of running a proxy, I noted some of the possible legal issues to the NEC, but need more of the technical details before I can offer any real suggestions or advice.

Just a couple of comments on this - it may vary depending on the configuration.

If it's just a proxy (which I believe it is), it's basically a routing devices like an ISP network and don't 'host' anything. If it were a reverse proxy configured for acceleration by caching the remote content, it would start actually mirroring the content, with content served directly from our server.

I don't believe the latter is in effect, but I would expect it to hold a different level of liability.

[topperfalkon]

In essence you're saying you're of the belief we're currently a communications provider as opposed to a content provider I guess?

[tdobson]

I just wrote a blog post on how to setup mirrors like our mirror:
http://blog.tdobson.net/2012/05/how-to- ... irate-bay/

[topperfalkon]

Awesome, nice work!

[aramoro]

I'd argue that TPB isn't strictly commercial either. They don't gain financially for works shared using their service.

They make revenue from adverts served on their site, they make money from the venture, perhaps not very successfully you can argue but they are still commercial. Do you think they would make even a 10th of the money they currently make if they did not share the links to copyrighted material that they do? They profit based on the content of their site, which is essentially a repository of films and music etc for all intent and purposes (Yes I know the difference, no I don't care).

Censorship is censorship. I can't see why it should be seen as OK to censor a commercial site if it isn't OK to censor a non-commercial one.

The status of the site is immaterial; it is the censorship that is objectionable.

Because in this way you just look like a political front for a commercial entity, just attracting more of the people who feel aggrieved that they're being targeted for wanting to down load the latest episodes of Fringe without paying for them. They don't care about Open Standards, they don't care about Copyright reform, they care about the seeding ratios for The Avengers. Now I know that's the history of your party, it's your roots to support Copyright Infringement via torrents. That's what your whole party exists to support. But you've move on from there, you've got some policies on the go, some really serious and useful ones. By reverting to torrents torrents torrents torrents where's my TV Episodes!! You become a figure of fun to the established media and more irreverent sources .

If there was a direct link from the Conservative or Labour party websites to Microsoft you would be the first to point out the conflict of interest there, this is exactly the same.