News - UK ISPs must block 21 more filesharing sites

[HEXUS]

Meanwhile isoHunt returns from the ashes.

Read more.

[Badbonji]

I bet more and more people are finding out about Tor Browser/similar methods of bypassing these blocks, this won't really achieve anything.

[Dooms]

Soon as they get blocked the proxy URL's just appear... anyone who can type the site name into Google can find these out.

[aramil]

Just shows a lack of understanding of how the Internet works. And does not really change anything.

Maybe someone should tell them, that way they could save some money on court costs

[fatguy666]

isohunt was my goto torrent site about 10 years ago but it really went downhill.

Don't even use torrents anymore anyway.

[Lil-Diabo]

When I saw the title, I was a little alarmed. When it said file sharing, I immediately thought sites like rapidshare and the like.

This is quite concerning as they seem to be blocking more and more and more. Wonder when or if they are ever going to stop?
Nothing a quick google search/proxy can't fix in any case.

[Saracen]

Whatever the rights or wrongs of copyright protection, I can't help but feel that Badbonji and Dooms, as well as the comment in the HEXUS article, were dead right .... it won't work.

It doesn't exactly require ninja hacking skills to work out that 30 seconds with Google (*) will tell even the least technically minded user orecisely how to get around these 'blocks', and about 30 minutes, or less, would see those measures implemented even by the technically inept or illiterate. I mean, the computer equivalent of rocket science it ain't.

So .... as the article pointed out, casual ysers might be blocked, but even the moderately determined won't be frustrated in the attempts for long. As surely, "casual" users aren't the intended target of the BPI??

Which makes me wonder, what percentage will copyright infringement be reduced by as a result of this? I can't believe it isn't tiny. Which makes me wonder what the point is? I mean, the BPI (etc) surely cannot be so thick as to not realise how trivial it is to get round this, or how easy it is to do? So, why bother? Publicity? Well, I guess it gets some of that, but will even that impact on those it's needs to to have an effect? Snowball's chance in hell, IMHO.

I just struggle to see the actual point in all this legal action .... unless you're a copyright lawyer of course, it which case, it probably pays for your kid's school fees for several years. But as with so much legal stuff, the only people to really benefit will be the lawyers.


(*) other brands of search engine are available, and up to the task.

[bridges009]

It's already been established that even when piracy is curbed there is no resulting increase in music sales, so this is all a gigantic authoritarian waste of time and that sweet sweet money that the BPI et al are so fond of.

[Luke7]

I think that these people don't quite understand how the internet works.. I wonder if the internet will be completely banned at some point? H.G.Wells was right!

[Dooms]

Want to reduce (never be able to all out stop) piracy? make it more convenient to not bother...

Due to Spotify I haven't downloaded a single music track in years and Netflix is my staple for video consumption and they recently have the right idea of looking what are the most pirated TV shows to decide what to try and buy next.

[herulach]

Want to reduce (never be able to all out stop) piracy? make it more convenient to not bother...

Due to Spotify I haven't downloaded a single music track in years and Netflix is my staple for video consumption and they recently have the right idea of looking what are the most pirated TV shows to decide what to try and buy next.

This. Netflix etc are fine, but not even close to flexible enough - particularly for TV. I have one of those cineworld unlimited cards so see basically everything I want at the pictures, and in the rare event something is worth watching again have no problem buying a DVD.

TV I've no moral issues with downloading - I subscribe to the channels that are showing stuff anyway and could already pull them off Tivo, but sometimes I want to watch something on the train etc. I know the legal position is different, but I see it as basically the same as me recording to VHS then carting that round, just more portable.

[Saracen]

....

TV I've no moral issues with downloading - I subscribe to the channels that are showing stuff anyway and could already pull them off Tivo, but sometimes I want to watch something on the train etc. I know the legal position is different, but I see it as basically the same as me recording to VHS then carting that round, just more portable.

And I suspect that part of the problem is that the unreasonable nature of the legal position is WHY a lot of people have little or no respect for it.

I mean, I buy a CD, but then if I put it on my MP3 player to listen to while I'm out for a walk, or on the train to work, etc, I'm breaching copyright? And, unless it's changed recently, in the UK, you are breaching copyright if you do that. That's not the case in many countries, but despite moves to change it, still (as far as I know) is here.

And do I care what the law says on that issue? Not enough to not do it.

And it's a small step from breaking copyright law on that, to breaking it in other ways, and unless you're well up on copyright law, you likely don't even know quite where the line is?

For instance, can you record from TV? It depends on what you intend to do, and do actually do, with the recording.

[Cog]

By shutting down all the big sites like isohunt and pirate bay, and then the next ones along the line like torrentfreak and torrent reactor, all they succeed in doing is forcing the user base towards a larger number of smaller sites. And hence by doing that they're just making it harder and harder for themselves to have any hope of controlling it.

I wish both sides had been more willing to compromise and went along the DMCA takedown request route. Copyright holders only need to take down the files with the most seeders and it would greatly curtail pirating, but at least there would have been one or two sites left where it's easy to find stuff that's actually legitimate.

[Odeas]

Didn't PirateBay traffic actually increase when that was banned?
It just made everyone (who didn't already know) aware and proxy's we're already close to top results on google.

I think the same thing has happened again when its been banned in the Netherlands recently.

[iworrall]

Carrie Fisher will deliver my response to this news:-

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wntX-a3jSY

[flufflogic]

The irony is, banning TPB caused the creation of a site aggregating all of its mirrors, utterly unblockable by law, that when you click the logo opens a random TPB mirror. So, they actually made it harder to block.