Financial News
- 2 May 2012, 7:32
Court Blocks Illegal File-Sharing Website
Five internet providers have been ordered by the High Court to block users' access to the illegal file-sharing website, The Pirate Bay.
Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media have been told to stop customers from using the Swedish-based site over the next few weeks.
Speaking on Jeff Randall Live, Olaf Swantee, chief executive of Everything Everywhere, the umbrella group for Orange and T-Mobile said: "We will block it as quickly as possible."
He added: "My technical people believe they can do this (block website Pirate Bay) overnight. It's an illegal business model and we need to make sure we protect customers from illegal business models."
A spokesman for Sky said that it is company policy to comply with court orders.
"As and when clear and legally robust evidence of copyright theft is presented, we will take appropriate action in respect to site blocking," the spokesman said.
A sixth internet provider, British Telecom, has been granted an additional period to consider its position.
It follows a decision by the court in February that both the operators and users of the website are infringing the copyright of music companies.
The decision is a victory for the British Phonographic Industry - which represents music companies - which has been campaigning against the sharing of copyrighted material online.
BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor said: "The High Court has confirmed that The Pirate Bay infringes copyright on a massive scale.
"Its operators line their pockets by commercially exploiting music and other creative works without paying a penny to the people who created them.
"Sites like The Pirate Bay destroy jobs in the UK and undermine investment in new British artists."
Founded in 2003, The Pirate Bay has more than five million registered users and is estimated to offer access to more than four million files.
It has survived raids on its servers by Swedish police and legal challenges in countries all over the world.
Four men, including the website's founders Gottfrid Svartholm and Frekrik Neij, are appealing their conviction by a Swedish court on charges of assistance to copyright infringement.
Technology journalist Tom Dunmore told Sky News: "It's going to be increasingly difficult for The Pirate Bay to get anywhere but the thing is with these peer sites is that it's not about shutting one down because others will pop up again.
"The internet allows people to share data easily, so really the music and film industries are fighting a losing battle.
"Their focus needs to be on providing great, legal alternatives.
"They're starting to appear now. Subscription services like NetFlix and Spotify that offer decent value and the sort of breadth of choice that you can get on the illegal sites."
what do you think?
chuffy1966
I'm surprised Pirate Bay have managed to hold on for this long to be honest, and why they think they have any sort of legal groundings to challenge any ruling is beyond me. End of the day copyright theft is still theft.
stephen
they can block the pirate bay . why can't they block child po.n sites. ? from the perverts
Robert Hare
Money is the answer it's big business
EQINOX187 .
Blocking a fixed site is simple where as blocking pictures that move around and may even be hiden inside seamingly harmless files are hard to stop or provent as they are never stored in one place for any length of time.
Robert Hare
Some file sharing sights now offer for a fee unanimous downloading and IP address blockers.
EQINOX187 .
no internet use is unanimous regardless of what bits of software you use. The fact is no mater how hard you try to hide your identiy you still leave markers and tracks as to where you have been and what you have been doing and all this info can be pulled from your internet provider directly or servers you have been visiting and they then track back to you from there. Your IP is only part of the story and its good to remmber that everything you do online goes through your internet providers servers first and these do record what your doing. This is how they have tracked down these anonymous fools that think there untoucable becuse there using IP blockers yet in all cases they are tracked back to where they live and arrested.
Thomas Jenkinson
There are work arounds I.e change service providers to one who no longer block said site! Ok with these service providers your talking a massive chunk of the telecom market but not all. Sounds Like if you want unrestricted internet usage you have to pay more to you know who! It looks like you pay peanuts you get monkeys! I'm looking at my contract Monday!
peter
There are only about 70 million people in this country (probably 71 million by the time I stop writing here because of immigrants) SO - Adrian - where do you get the 160 million Britons from ?
El Bubsio
-"The High Court has confirmed that The Pirate Bay infringes copyright on a massive scale. No it doesn't. That's like saying that someone who points out the local drug dealer to you at a party is therefore a dealer themselves. -"Its operators line their pockets by commercially exploiting music and other creative works without paying a penny to the people who created them. No it doesn't. It makes its money through advertising on it's site. -"Sites like The Pirate Bay destroy jobs in the UK and undermine investment in new British artists." No they don't. Music label's continually backing only artists they can exploit and make money from do that. -"The internet allows people to share data easily, so really the music and film industries are fighting a losing battle. "Their focus needs to be on providing great, legal alternatives. At last something sensible. If it didn't cost £40 to take a family to the cinema for an hour and a half, maybe more people would do it. Taking music as an example, the simple fact is that most artists make a pittance from the sales of their albums -about $25 in every 1000-, whilst labels make around $650. Any new band has to repay the cost of recording their album, half the cost of releasing the singles and accompanying videos, tour costs, radio promotion etc. These costs are all recoupable from the band's share of money too, not from the profit made from album sales (so as to not cut into the labels slice of the pie) Big businesses are not interested in supporting artists, only their own bank balances. That's why so many artists are now deciding to record and digitally distribute their own material.
Adrian Wagstaff
7:20pm on 30/4/2012
I have just developed the following strategy for making each person in Great Britain ... a millionaire ... goes-like-this: If each person in Great Britain is a millionaire, it "normally" can't work, due to, shops increase their prices, in order to get more profits from the millionaires. The only plausible answer is, give 160 million Britons one million pounds each, total cost = 160,000,000,000,000 pounds Sterling. One hundred and sixty trillion pounds ... only? How can it work? Simply by government regulations forcing shops to not charge over a certain limit for all goods on sale ... therefore keeps inflation ... static! ...
Robert Hare
11:56pm on 30/4/2012
Adrian if everybody was a millionaire the monetary system wouldn't be able to work.
Julie Doughty
12:02am on 1/5/2012
This comment has been removed for violations of our Terms and Conditions.
Ian Stephenson
12:47am on 1/5/2012
WHAT?!!! Where the hell did you study economics!!