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Telco block on Pirate Bay Backfires big time
by Lee Taylor via styx - News Limited Wednesday, May 2 2012, 10:15pm
international / mass media / other press

A [UK] court ruling ordering telcos to block customers from using The Pirate Bay has reportedly backfired - sending a "record number" of people to the file-sharing website.

Following 'Hollywood's' lost court appeal against Oz provider iiNet for 'allowing' file sharing, Britain’s High Court ordered UK internet providers to block access to Swedish-based website, Pirate Bay, which lets users download copyrighted films, TV shows, music and computer games.

The ruling followed other European countries such as Italy, Denmark, Spain, Austria, Finland and Belgium to ban access to The Pirate Bay. [Notice the borderless, global reach/push by corporate elites!]

However, a spokesperson for piracy site said more visitors than ever were visiting and “the free advertising” would only increase traffic levels, TorrentFreak reports.

“Thanks to the High Court and the fact that the news was on the BBC, we had 12 MILLION more visitors yesterday than we had ever had before,” The Pirate Bay spokesperson told TorrentFreak.

“We should write a thank you note to the BPI (the music industry group).”

The Pirate Bay spokesperson said the website was educating users on how to bypass the ban - set to happen over the next few weeks.

The Pirate Bay said any blocking technique employed by any internet service provider could be overcome by using virtual private networks (VPNs) services.

VPNs offer users a secure network that allows data sharing behind heavily encrypted firewalls.

New research by Sweden's Lund University said there had been a 40 per cent rise in the number of 15 to 25-year-olds in the country using VPNs since 2009.

The study, carried out by the Cybernorms research group, said 700,000 Swedes now make themselves anonymous online with paid VPNs such as The Pirate Bay’s iPredator.

Last month Australian internet service provider iiNet won a major legal battle over whether it should be held responsible for its customers downloading content illegally.

An appeal by the world's largest film and television companies against iiNet was dismissed on April 20 by the High Court.

A group of 34 international and Australian companies, including Warner Bros, Disney and the Seven Network, had alleged that iiNet had authorised the infringement of their copyright when its customers downloaded movies and television programs.

The High Court found that iiNet had no direct technical power to prevent its customers from using the BitTorrent file sharing system to infringe copyright.

[This is free Oz talking, blow the rest out ur arse! We are MANY -- We are ONE -- we are FREE!]

© 2012 News Limited

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