WebProNews

Tag: BREIN

  • The Pirate Bay Fighting Censorship One IP Address At A Time

    Remember when The Pirate Bay was blocked in the UK on the grounds that it enabled copyright on a massive scale? That may have been only the most recent attempt at censoring the site, but various other European countries have also ruled in favor of blocking access to everybody’s favorite torrent tracker. It’s totally fine though because The Pirate Bay is constantly working to keep access open to all.

    Keeping that access open is one of the reasons behind The Pirate Bay seeing a huge influx of users the day after the UK ruled that the site was to blocked. Even after ISPs all over the country started to block access, people still got around using proxies and other means. It’s a useless battle, but the copyright industry keeps on trying.

    Unfortunately, the only downside to these tactics is that everybody doesn’t know how to use a proxy. For those people, The Pirate Bay has come up with a solution – a new IP. By just typing the IP address in your browser, users can access The Pirate Bay. The courts are only having the original IP address blocked so any new subsequent IP addresses will be available for all.

    It wouldn’t be long before the copyright industry got wind of this workaround and went after the new IP address. TorrentFreak is reporting that is already the case as everybody’s non-favorite Dutch anti-piracy group, BREIN, told local ISPs to shut off access to the new IP address. The ISPs refused so BREIN went to the court again to get another blocking order and were successful in getting the new IP blocked.

    The funny thing is that The Pirate Bay claims to have hundreds of IP addresses. Speaking to TorrentFreak, an insider replied to BREIN’s actions by saying, “Let me get the next IP address lined up.” If The Pirate Bay does indeed have hundreds of IPs just waiting to be used, the anti-piracy groups are just waging a war of attrition that they can not win. Sooner or later, the anti-piracy groups are just going to give up because they’re the ones who have to go to court while wasting time and money. The Pirate Bay just has to turn on another IP address for next to nothing.

    All of this just goes to show you how out of touch the media industries are. They could be spending their money on alternative ways to market their goods to people and compete with piracy on a level that actually wins them consumer loyalty and sales. Unfortunately, these groups are too caught up in fighting piracy and punishing legitimate consumers to realize that their actions are the cause of piracy in the first place.

    If this war of attrition between The Pirate Bay and BREIN does play out, it should be highly entertaining. We’ll keep you updated on any and all developments.

  • Two Dutch ISPs Refuse To Block Web Sites

    Two Dutch ISPs Refuse To Block Web Sites

    Dutch ISPs are fighting the good fight for net freedom by keeping access to Web sites like the The Pirate Bay open.

    Torrent Freak is reporting that two large ISPs in the Netherlands, T-Mobile and KPN, are refusing to block access to The Pirate Bay after the Hollywood supported anti-piracy group BREIN demanded they restrict access. The ISPs said that blocking Web sites is a threat to the open Internet.

    As you may or may not be aware, the Court of the Hague ruled that Ziggo and XS4ALL, the two largest ISPs in the Netherlands, have to block access to The Pirate Bay.

    After the ruling, XS4ALL was quoted as saying they were disappointed that fundamental rights had been traded for “commercial interests.”

    BREIN brought the case against those two ISPs, but they weren’t finished yet. They issued requests to other ISPs in the country to block access to the torrent site.

    KPN and T-Mobile both made statements saying that they would not be honoring BREIN’s request. Torrent Freak says that this means millions of Internet users in the Netherlands can still access The Pirate Bay without the use of proxies.

    They both spoke out against censorship and said that they would only block access following a court order. They told Hollywood that innovation is a better way to deal with piracy than straight out censorship.

    KPN said that they don’t believe a blockade is the right solution, but “robust, attractive business models that are easy to use and offer a fair deal to both producers and consumers of content.”

    T-Mobile made a similar statement saying that they will only respond to a court ruling, and not the demands from a “private party such as BREIN.”

    BREIN is expected to bring the two ISPs to court over their refusal to block access to the site.

    It makes you wonder if these anti-piracy groups even get that what they’re doing has no effect. We’ve seen it time and time again. You censor a Web site and users get around it with little to no effort.

    You would think that Hollywood would finally learn to innovate and remain competitive instead of just suing everything that remotely threatens their business model from the 20th century.