London cops cuff 20-year-old man for unblocking blocked websites City of London cops have ventured outside the M25 to cuff a suspect in Nottingham under the suspicion that he runs a "proxy server" which allows users to access 36 verboten sites. Officers from City Police's Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) said they'd arrested and questioned a 20-year-old man suspected of running an " …
Unless looking at things and reading things is wrong. Ah I remember now there are laws that determine what you can look at, see and read legally.
So mother (uk gov) decides what is good for us and bad for us and hence what we can see or not see.
I guess that mother doesn't like one of the children picking the lock on the larder to allow all the other children to see what mother is eating.
Such a fat mother, keeping the juicy truth to herself whist feeding her children on what she thinks is best for them. Mother always knows best :-) It's for your own good.
@adnim Of course. This is proven by the recent case of two people being arrested for smut pictures on their phones, which they received per whatsapp and thought they had deleted. That case set a great precedent and now looking at things is a crime. If you wanted to look at it or not is irrelevant.
Unless the 20 year-old man has managed to set up a proxy server using the services of one of the ISPs which were ordered to block the website, there is no crime, is there?
Are we getting into territory that if you use a non-BT/Sky/TalkTalk/etc... UK ISP or a foreign ISP you're providing illegal access because you didn't go along with a high court ruling that was not aimed at you?
Mindboggling.
He has only violated the ISPs terms of service. It is the ISPs which were ordered to block the sites.
Still, anything that gets these vile terrorism-supporting scum off our streets is a good thing for the rest of us who have to obey the law and who would never dream of visiting a site on the block list...nosireeebob!
Here in the US it's a crime to do something where the primary aim of that something is to circumvent a law. If a law is circumvented as a secondary effect of the something it's an entirely different ball of wax though. The whole concept is insanely convoluted and stuffed to over flowing with caveats, exceptions and gray areas. I assume the same is true for you guys.
It's absolutely the same in the UK (with the same issues over interpretation). If somebody acts as to subvert an injunction, then they may - and I repeat may - be committing a criminal act.
Of course it's no surprise that US and UK jurisdictions are similar in this area as both are based on the same common law roots.
There are two interesting things here. The first is the reach of the law. A UK citizen resident in the UK is an easy target. The second, and maybe more worrying, is if the scope was ever extended to those who give advice on how to bypass injunctions on ISPs. The latter would make a huge number of people vulnerable, but as the common law in this area is not well established, who knows.
Incidentally, in this case I suspect the USA authorities will (eventually) close loopholes as the US is, if anything, far more intent on "protecting" IPR than is even the UK or EU authorities. I think there are already treaties being discussed...
Ah, but has he tried to usurp the law in question? I think not. The law says an ISP must block these sites and they are still doing so. Therefore, no usurping of the law. The law does not say you can't see the sites, just that the ISPs must block them. So, being a non-ISP, what's he done wrong?
Did you run a background check on the individual to make sure they haven't already bought 10 hammers?
What did you do to ensure that they haven't been accused of participating in a violent crime in the past?
Did the individual say anything you thought was suspicious?
If the answers to the above questions aren't satisfactory then, yes, you have committed a crime.
"Of course it's no surprise that US and UK jurisdictions are similar in this area as both are based on the same common law roots."
In principle, maybe. However, the USA has a written constitution. The UK has nothing to protect against governments making it up as they go along(*), and the hereditary principle in no way improves that situation.
P.
(*) Except the ECHR, but that is looking distinctly temporary...
"I've never understood why the US constitution is held up a shining example of immutable rights. The thing has been amended, appended and reinterpreted more times than I care to count."
Well, when certain people and groups here *cough*NSA*cough* violate people's constitutional rights, that action is definitely violating the US Constitution and therefore illegal. Although they continue to do it, one can hope eventually these bad actors will be brought to justice. On the other hand, in the UK your rights are not specifically codified anywhere, so if bad actors want to pretend those rights don't exist there's nothing for you to point to to say they do in fact exist.
>>On the other hand, in the UK your rights are not specifically codified anywhere, so if bad actors want to pretend those rights don't exist there's nothing for you to point to to say they do in fact exist.
hahahahahahaha!!!!
The US constitution is built upon British documents, Magna Carta for a start, and it's no coincidence that the first ten amendments are called the "Bill of Rights", they are called that because they are based on the British "Bill of Rights" from the 1600's, you're just a bunch of copycats from an upstart British colony.
Besides, how valid is your constitution when you have sedation acts which means the government can do whatever they like to you if you act against them?
@Fibbles
"The thing has been amended, appended and reinterpreted more times than I care to count."
So? There's no rule that says it was perfect when written and can can never be improved. (That's just an assumption in YOUR mind).
The difference is that the amendments were by mutual consent, NOT by decree.
>>In principle, maybe. However, the USA has a written constitution. The UK has nothing to protect against governments making it up as they go along(*), and the hereditary principle in no way improves that situation.
Ummm... the UK has a massive constitution, from Magna Carta onwards, it's extremely developed, mature and enshrined for centuries, Bill of Rights, Claim of Rights, all the numerous provisions, statutes and acts, which by the way the US constitution (or "Constitution for Dummies" as it's known as) is based upon.
And yet, UK residents have lost the right to stay silent when accused of a crime. How did that happen?
Everyone reading this forum knows you can be imprisoned indefinitely in the UK for not giving them your keys, even if you don't have any to give!
There is nothing that the UK govt cannot make legal (or illegal) just by changing the law.
There is a reason the founding fathers wrote it down, and there are separate branches of Govt. With as much "flux" as there was in Europe in the 1700's, it is clear they understood the malign intent of the ruling classes to abuse any and all political power. It is not a finished document, but it remains an amazing statement of "self-evident truths".
Of course the US constitution has roots in many documents prior to it, English being the working language, but let's not forget the French revolution and the somewhat amazing Ben Franklin.
As with most things English, the Americans found unique ways of improving upon them...
Beer, as that is one thing the Americans have improved drastically in the last few years...;-)
P.
Indeed, the United Kingdom is a satellite nation of the leaders of the free world which in turn is governed by the financial capitalists', namely the corporations that in turn have a huge influence on the law through their enormous lobbying network. Goodbye democracy and welcome to the new autocracy.
/OT
Common law is an absolute disgrace, a sub-Saharan-level "legal system", stuck somewhere the rest of Europe was around the 17-18th century... a really dangerous, crude, primitive joke compared to proper statutory civil law systems (and I live in the US so I know what I'm talking about.) Anyone has a shred of doubt (=people does not know the topic or live in civil law countries) just watch The Night Of on HBO and you will get the idea (and that's criminal law which actually sports statues - family law almost completely arbitrary, laws are essentially nonexistent, at least here in the US.)
Another thing . . . here in the U.S., we have a federal statute, upon which law enforcement rules, regs, and policies must be based, which says that Fair Use gives the individual the RIGHT to make or obtain a backup copy for works which the individual paid for.
Nothing in the statute says where that backup has to come from, only that you must have - at some point in your life - lawfully purchased a valid copy of the product.
Q.E.D. downloading a copy of something you paid for - at some point in your life - is not and cannot be a crime. Proof of ownership? Keeping receipts for everything under the sun? What's that they say about "Possession is 9/10's of the law"?
Lawyers and Copyright Trolls may claim otherwise, but a simple reading of the statue is all that's needed. Basic Law says you do not read into a law something it does not explicitly state. Basic (American) Law also states that a law which cannot be easily understood by the people to whom it is to apply is Void For Vagueness. Corrupt NSA-influenced Judges, DA's and those whose profession is centered around the District of Criminals will say otherwise, but they've already shown they, and their words, are not to be trusted.
In Europe, well . . .didn't the infamous Marie Antoinette case offer guidance?
(No, I'm only a little bit cynical.)
There are many legitimate reasons to use proxies in the UK, I'd say they far outweigh the illegal reasons.
The primary example being ordering things online with your UK credit card while you're abroad.
The anri fraud systems in place in the ecommerce industry are 'dumb as shit', they check the IP matches the country where the card was issued.
Hundreds of thousands of Brits who live abroad either full time or part time still use UK banks and order things on the internet from all over the world, software, etc and are routinely blocked by these 'fraud filters' - it's a real pain in the ass.
So many times has my order been 'put on hold' for an investigation, once they refunded the legitimate purchase of several hundred dollars even though I'd been issued a working serial number - complete dumbasses.
"Here in the US it's a crime to do something where the primary aim of that something is to circumvent a law"
Yes - A crminal law.
The blocking of websites is a civil matter, all the court orders are in civil court, naming individual websites/IPs and applicable to individual ISPs (who must have more than 50,000 customers.)
There is no crime here. It's a civil matter and the COLP are operating WELL outside their legal jurisdiction.
'arrested'?
nobody has actually been arrested in this country for about 20 years as far as i can gather, violently beaten and abducted, computers stolen....you now have to rip up all the floor boards and rip down ceilings looking for the cameras and other devices, destroy all food, burn clothes- no longer safe to live there if they know where you are it's not safe to be there anymore....
and you say no crime has been committed?
There is no crime - at best you'd be in contempt of court, but that's unlikely given how the relevant court orders aren't against you, they're against specific ISPs.
I'd sue the fecks and own my own police force by the end of the week.
This is an obvious case of misconduct in public office by whomever sanctioned the arrest which carries very very very long maximum jail sentences.
When they're questioning you don't answer anything, just ask the obvious questions "have you been smoking crack?" and "can plz haz solicitor?" and you'll do fine.
They take away your IT equipment for 'forensic analysis' - hey, you might be downloading child terrorism copyright infringement porn - and if that's your main tool for work you're screwed. They keep/destroy your equipment, you can't earn, so lose your house. Once you're destitute they drop all charges and everything's hunky dory, no misconduct, nothing to see here, move along.
Been there and experienced that.
I was arrested and questioned for 8 hours; released and all charges dropped in 4 days.
Computer equipment returned a year later in a "non functional" condition.
Some of it I managed to get working again, but a laptop and one HDD were trashed, and a lot of flash memory cards and OS disks were "missing" (along with ~£200 in mixed foreign currency)
As mentioned above, they ALMOST CERTAINLY know they cant convict him of anything, but by seizing his equipment they put him out of business, and if he has enough to buy/lease new equipment, they will just keep arresting him until he runs out of money.
By the time the first arrest comes to court, they could have arrested him and seized equipment a further 10-20 times.
@AC. Luckily, I've never been in that position. However, if you are never convicted and the equipment returned, surely the police have to pay for any damaged/missing items? I was aware Customs had the right to trash stuff and not worry about it, but I thought the police were different?
In your case, I guess a lot of coppers are now running your operating systems etc.etc. They're either thieving b**tards or too incompetent to ensure they return everything in good order, so should loose their jobs either way.
Firstly he should not have signed to say they took it, secondly got a solicitor and a barrister to ensure that all numbers etc were listed, that all monies were listed with note serial numbers, that the police have returned the equipment in the condition it was in including restitution of time costs eg interest on money held, and to ensure that as a consequence the software on the computer etc was kept up to date.
You must realise that the filth are exactly that, that 33% or the bill are bent, that 33% could not give a fxxk and that only leaves about 33 % that MAY be any good.
For example we were told by a police force that a drunk juvenile (12) on drugs was nothing to do with the filth by the control room causing a serious disturbance at 23:00. This within 500yds of where a girl of the same age was murdered and said gang of thieves never found the culprit!
However set up the VPN from abroad for the UK even the Met have trouble with that. Mine is from Spain and I do not live in the UK but it is not for filth with which I do not agree.
I had two clueless Scotland Yard defectives (they really were "dicks") try to steal my computers because they didn't run Windoze or anything else they recognised: I must have been up to no good....
The error of their ways was explaned to them by my (very expensive) legal eagle, and my successful damages claim ran to six figures.
I don't think they're defectives any more - they'll be lucky to be directing traffic.
I suspect he was actually providing a proxy service, providing access to copywrite material is significantly different to merely using a proxy.
This is why Google don't provide links to (some) torrents, but it's still in the fine line between holding material you didn't pay for and giving access to the same said material, with a vaguely competent lawyer he should be fine, for a start they would have to prove loss or damage, you can't be guilty of speeding merely by having a car capable of speeding.
It's good to see our no bobbies engaged in top crime prevention. None of that soft stuff like people being beaten up or killed or raped or kidnapped or kept in the cellar (ooo... that reminds me) etc etc etc. NO! Downloading stuff over a length of cable is where the REAL crime is.
It is though, think of all those poor execs, actors and musicians who can only afford a £300 of wine instead of the £1000 bottle they wanted. When you download that DVD you had no intention of buying anyway you have robbed them of the money you wouldn't have spent not buying the DVD.
"When you download that DVD you had no intention of buying anyway you have robbed them of the money you wouldn't have spent not buying the DVD."
So if you weren't gonna pay for it then why the fuck watch it? Would you be impressed if your boss told you to turn up tomorrow but he/she had no intention of paying you anyway? You do realise that not everyone in the media industries are on million dollar incomes yeah..?
Oh of course, you're a FREETARD == gimme gimme gimme gimme more more more!
You're right, I'll be heading down to the auto dealership and buy a car with out even test driving it...
The biggest downloader I know actually buys shed loads of stuff (shit really) after previewing it from the download, but he may be the exception to the freetard rule. He likes to keep stuff in the box unopened when possible...
So, is there problem using your back up copy as your primary, and keeping your primary in the box for added value?
After isn't that what we all want in life? Added value?
So if you weren't gonna pay for it then why the fuck watch it?
Offhand I came up with two non-Freetard reasons to download a title:
1. Only a censored/expurgated/"edited for time" version is shown on TV but you want to watch the unadulterated version. (Unless you want to construe skipping the ads as theft.)
2. The title in question is otherwise unavailable in the geographic area where you reside.
You forgot the following copyright exemptions:
Non-commercial research and private study
Text and data mining for non commercial research
Criticism, review and reporting current events
Teaching in educational establishments
Helping visually impaired people
Time shifting
And of course that copyright is a civil offence, so I don't think it is illegal as breaking it is not a criminal offence. (I'm not a lawyer, if I was I'd be charging, but I believe this last line is correct. The exemptions are correct however, so please remeber when answering that phoney letter these scammers send out)
"And of course that copyright is a civil offence, so I don't think it is illegal as breaking it is not a criminal offence."
Oh please, not that nonsense again; am I the only poster on these forums who has heard of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or the DMCA? Copyright violation has been a crime in the UK since 1 January 1989, and in the US since sometime in 2000...
I just downvoted your comment, Mr Baker, since it proved you to be the idiot you described, and I thought you might be lonely all by yourself. A fault, I suppose, but I chalk it up to the milk of human kindness, which runs thick (but hopefully not too thick !) in my veins.... ;-)
Henri
`'Oh please, not that nonsense again; am I the only poster on these forums who has heard of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or the DMCA? Copyright violation has been a crime in the UK since 1 January 1989, and in the US since sometime in 2000..."
I guess you have never read the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 then?
Edit: and the DMCA is a US law, does not apply to UK
Last time I read it,Copyright Infringement was a Civil offence,
it is only criminal when it causes significant harm to the copyright holder (I can't be bothered to go find the act and copy the relevant passages right now)
Edit: I looked it up, read here.. http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/48/part/I/chapter/VI section 107 for what IS a criminal offence.
But the law is good, it is set out to protect copyright holders from organised infringement, but also not criminalise minor infringers. I.E. bootleggers get nicked because they cause losses and make money, sharing with a few friends is less of a worry.
The problem is that the internet has meant a single person can easily cause severe harm by sharing something to thousands of people for no effort..
What I suspect in this case, will be the proxy is set up specifically to give access to these blocked sites, and either makes money via Advertising or charges for access...
Although I still cannot figure out what crime he has committed...
It was actually the The Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 that amended it to a criminal offence.
However this make it criminal if copyright is infringed in the course of business or "to such an extent as to affect prejudicially the owner of the copyright" which could be argued by any well paid lawyer in include nearly all "pirating" copyright infringement..
I think he's gotten confused, although apparently you have as well. Copyright for *commercial purposes* is a criminal act, but copyright for private use is not. Copyright infringement on a non-commercial scale is a civil tort, not a crime (civil and criminal law are two separate branches of the law).
Illegal refers to something that breaks the law, regardless of what kind of law. A crime is a breach of criminal law, which is the jurisdiction of the police and CPS (or a private prosecution, although these are pretty rare). A civil tort is a breach of civil law which requires the injured party/parties bring it to court themselves
Also, the long running ad campaign by FACT where they say "Breaking copyright is a crime" are flat out lying. They want copyright to be perceived as being equivalent to theft, which is a criminal offence, so that people are more willing to accept severe punishments for it. It's basically a propaganda campaign, since FACT are entirely funded and run by various large name publishers and film studios
Sorry, but your reasons are irrelevant.
The creators/owners/licensees may be bast**ds but the stuff is theirs. You may want it in a different format/locale/cut, to 'preview' it for quality before buying it or some such, but your desire does not grant you a right to other people's stuff.
I don't care if you call it theft, violation or whatever, the point is that someone/thing else made it and/or licenses it and have the right to charge for it. If you don't agree to their terms, you don't get the item - regardless of any justification, reasonable or otherwise. It's called honesty. Integrity.
It's a moral thing too. You may believe the providers are in the wrong, but so what? That shouldn't affect your own moral stance - unless your morality was a sham to start with, dropped at the first sign of inconvenience or entitlement.
If the movie was broadcast on TV, then the people who made it got paid, the people who broadcast it got paid, and I got to see it "for free."
If I download an unadulterated version of that movie instead of watching the altered version on TV, the people who made it still got paid, the people who broadcast it still got paid, and I got to see it "for free" but somehow now it's immoral? Is morality not derived from intent? Was my intent to steal it or just watch the complete version of it?
The idea that the altered version of the film is a distinct copyrighted work is in fact technically correct and the media companies certainly treat them this way. But the two versions of the movie are substantively similar enough that any average person would hold the opinion that they are NOT different works. An explicitly differing version like a "Director's Cut" wouldn't be covered by this TV argument as that work has been specifically altered with the intent of creating a distinct artistic variation of the original. Time-compression and/or censoring the swear words is merely a technical/format change.
The geographic non-availablity argument's fix is to just sell it online and stop doing geolocation filtering. If I live somewhere that has local laws blocking the movie from being sold to me, let me worry about that part; it isn't the copyright holder's concern.
>You do realise that not everyone in the media industries are on million dollar incomes yeah..?
True. Perhap then they should try to make a living from performances, rather than digital duplication which requires no effort on their part and is easy for anyone to do.
Meh, I'm grumpy and think we could do with a lot less "entertainment." Who knows, people might start talking to each other again.
Would you be impressed if your boss told you to turn up tomorrow but he/she had no intention of paying you anyway?
I work as a programmer. I expect to be paid by my employer to turn up to work, but I certainly don't expect to be paid every time one of our users runs a piece of code I've written.
By all means, performers should be paid to perform, but people shouldn't have to pay the same price you would pay to go to a concert and see a performer live just to listen to a pre-recorded version of their performance.
Also, you are conveniently ignoring the fact that many people download things to watch/listen to them and decide if they like it, before actually buying it, so increasing sales. I know I have certainly bought things that I otherwise would not have, after downloading them first.
"So if you weren't gonna pay for it then why the fuck watch it?"
The principle of the matter. Lots of people are downloading things with no intent to actually watch them, simply because of the streisand effect (whack a mole, etc etc)
This isn't exactly new. The french had a similar problem about 250 years ago: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110808/12354815439/if-even-death-penalty-wont-stop-infringement-perhaps-different-approach-is-needed.shtml
Documented in "Mercantilism", which is a university textbook, in case anyone wants to dispute it actually happened..
"When you download that DVD you had no intention of buying anyway you have robbed them of the money you wouldn't have spent not buying the DVD."
Very few people who download a pirate movie had the intention of buying it anyway, that is why they downloaded the pirate version. Only people who choose not to use pirate copies generally buy the movies they want to watch.
If a store gives away free candy, I'm not going to go to the store next door to buy the candy.
You may not like the law and you may not like having to pay for digital content, but if you think most people who pirate movies are actually people who usually contribute the most to the media industry then you're delusional.
The copyright law (death + 70), the influence of the media moguls lobbyists, the heavy handed attitude to it etc are all way over the top in my opinion. However I still pay for an £8 per month music subscription, have a streaming video subscription and buy the odd DVD and have only pirated one movie in modern times and that was after I had already bought it online (awaiting delivery) and wanted to see it before watching the sequel later that day (it wan't available on any streaming service)
"Very few people who download a pirate movie had the intention of buying it anyway,"
I for one have bought a number of movies I wouldn't have otherwise done, after viewing downloads..
The simple truth is that a good number of movies are crap and I'm bugger if I'm going to pay 15-20 squid on a new release to find that out. The crap ones get deleted and usually not-fully-watched.
The simple truth is that a good number of movies are crap and I'm bugger if I'm going to pay 15-20 squid on a new release to find that out. The crap ones get deleted and usually not-fully-watched.
Well if they're crap, I guess that makes your actions acceptable then?
The actions of pirates don't suddenly become morally justified just because the big corps going after people for copyright violations act like complete bellends.
Does anyone recall the BPI's 'Home Taping Is Killing Music!', campaign sometime in the 'early '80s…? It was the primary reason for DJs talking over the ends of tracks (except Peel, as I recall, who was vehemently anti the BPI).
Now, I don't know much about the film industry but, as far as the music biz goes, many artists are PRO 'piracy', particularly in the US. Up until a couple of years ago, there was a band called Bomb The Music Industry!, founded by Jeff Rosenthal (a well-known figure in cult punk circles) which made ALL its recordings available for free download (though you could make a donation if you so desired). NOFX frontman, and owner of Fat Wreck Chords, 'Fat' Mike Burkett, has not only taken the RIAA to court several times (and won every time) over FWC's name being on the RIAA's books. Apparently, the RIAA simply re-added it, but altered the spelling (Fat Records, Phat Records, Fat Wreck Cords, etc.). Burkett has also been known to pay the fines of anyone convicted of 'illegally' downloading music belonging to any artist on FWC's roster.
99% - if not 100% - of the time, 'anti-piracy' has fuck all to do wth protecting the artists - and everything to do with ensuring the suits get their big, fat cheques. Trent Reznor has been known to ENCOURAGE the downloading of anything he's been involved with, just to piss off the suits. I've several NIN LPs - and I've only ever paid for a couple. Graham Crabb once told me I could download PWEI's new one if I couldn't afford it.
Most artists feel that anti-piracy legislation stifles them because it hands too much control over to the labels, and they lose control over what is THEIR intellectual property, after all…
"If a store gives away free candy, I'm not going to go to the store next door to buy the candy."
To run with your metaphor (lame as it is):
If a store gives away free candy that I like (and would pay for), and the other store out right refuses to sell me the candy, where do you think I'm going for my candy?
<Looks at the two DVDs I bought before the producer of the series decided it'd make more money not releasing the DVDs except through exclusive deals not available in my area.>
"If a store gives away free candy, I'm not going to go to the store next door to buy the candy."
I'm going to the store that gives me everything in one shop, with the least hassle.
Exclusive licencing deals = missing content, problematic silverlight, other drm blocking hdmi ports, etc compared to one website which has all the content and it works on any device. Not a hard choice.
I stopped buying media due to the way the media giants started getting heavy handed and interfering with the open internet. It's principle now. I'll happily run a not-for-profit proxy if this guy wins, which he should considering all the facts so far.
Reminds me of the DirectTV and Canadians.
When DirectTV was offered in the early 2000s in the US, some canadians were being accused of "pirating" the service using aftermarket decoders etc. But DirectTV did not offer canadians the service legally, so they (DirectTV) had to abandon their..quest
The greed is endless....
I used to download rips of HD-DVDs so I could watch the high definition version of a film. I copied it from the PC to the PS3 and watched it on there.
I wanted to watch the film in HD, I had an HD player but they did not make discs for it. So I worked around it.
Funny that my BluRay player could play rips of HD-DVDs so well.
Those execs who sell their works on the internet totally ignore the fact that the internet is paid for by all those millions of subscribers and the execs are making use of the internet's reach without paying a single cent for them. For example, assuming 10,000 subscribers of 100Mbps broadband, and only 1,000 of these are customers of, say, Netflix. And if these 1,000 Netflix users routinely watch movies and make use of 90% of the available bandwidth of these 10,000 internet subscribers, is Netflix stealing bandwidth from the other 9,000 internet subscribers?
This was the City of London cops. They're not "real" police, they are corporate police. Real policing in London is carried out by the Metropolitan Police although technically within the City of London's area the City of London cops are also responsible for real policing.
Good to see that in a "raid", a private individual from the Federation Against Copyright ViolationTheft, a private for-profit organisation funded by large studios, was invited along for the ride.
"Good to see that in a "raid", a private individual from the Federation Against Copyright ViolationTheft, a private for-profit organisation funded by large studios, was invited along for the ride."
They probably took a video of the raid, which will find its way onto dodgy sites, be downloaded etc. and round and round you go..
"Good to see that in a "raid", a private individual from the Federation Against Copyright ViolationTheft, a private for-profit organisation funded by large studios, was invited along for the ride."
That in itself is completely illegal, unless he was the actual person who signed the complaint and there was a court order for the raid.
If there WAS a court order, the COLP wouldn't need to use bulying tactics to force handover of a domain - and registrars wouldn't be telling them to take a hike.
@ Nick Ryan; "This was the City of London cops. They're not "real" police, they are corporate police."
I see what you're saying, but what's worrying is that they *are* a real police force and have the power to do things every other police force does.... the problem being that they're accountable to the Corporation of London- the council governing the "square mile" financial district, 21 of whose 25 electoral wards are controlled not by the people who live there, but by banks, corporations and other companies. (No, this is not a joke).
There's no conflict of interest there, and it's *purely* coincidental that a police force nominally governing a tiny square-mile-sized area is involved in a massively disproportionately amount of corporate-favouring activism against claimed infringements of intellectual property.
"Claimed" being the word, since the actions of the force against alleged pirates- such as trying to have their domains taken off them, or putting notices up on their websites- bypass the usual judicial processes and oversights. Not that this is surprising for a police force run for the benefit of the Corporation whose powers far exceed its location, which is able to operate without the democratic oversight required almost anywhere else in the UK.
This is an incredibly interesting article covering the Corporation of London and the square mile:-
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/31/corporation-london-city-medieval
(I really "like" this bit... "The City of London is the only part of Britain over which parliament has no authority. In one respect at least the Corporation acts as the superior body: it imposes on the House of Commons a figure called the remembrancer: an official lobbyist who sits behind the Speaker's chair and ensures that, whatever our elected representatives might think, the City's rights and privileges are protected.")
I was on the receiving end of a chain email sent by an acquaintance who joined the plod, which made fun of the fact that you get (potentially) a much lesser sentence by beating, raping, murdering someone, or a combination of all three, than by downloading a film from the net.
The (tongue in cheek, obviously) recommendation was that next time you felt the urge to fire up BitTorrent you should go and brain someone instead.
Not fucked up at all, eh?
"In lieu of the arguements of those pirating being more likely to buy, it's already been proven.
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/06/piracy-film-music-study-pay-illegal-download-damage"
Errr, no it hasn't. Did you even read that link. It was just saying that *movie* downloaders were more likely to buy movies and watch films than *music* downloaders.
This debate was about piracy of all and the story doesn't compare to non-piraters at all.
“Internet users have sought ways to continue to access the sites by getting round the blocking put in place by the ISPs. One of the ways to do this is to use proxy servers. This operation is a major step in tackling those providing such services."
I'm pretty sure copyright infringement is the number 1 crime on Joe public's mind.
We'll all sleep safe in our beds tonight!
PS. I didn't think operating a proxy server or just visiting a blocked site was a crime? When did they sneak that in?
They tend to only go after things that make it crazy easy to download things - there was a lot of enforcement action when sickbeard started making waves, issuing takedown orders to corrupt files and attacking indexers - even automated indexers, which seem to me to be performing precisely the same function as google, but somehow what they do is illegal....
All the content is still on usenet, but you need to know how and where to look, and what to look for.
I agree with this. Back before Kazaa and their ilk appeared a much bigger file sharing network existed on IRC and the catalogs I used to see there had several terabytes of music alone on individual file servers and this was in the days where you couldn't buy a 1TB drive. Warez sites migrated around with files split into spanned archives and mirrored on several (usually free) hosts to help avoid takedowns. You had to know where to look for content and IRC isn't easy for non-technical people either. File sharing was never mentioned by the authorities in those days. Those IRC chat-rooms places still exist today and yet I have not once heard any mention of IRC and file sharing over the years.
Then Kazaa/Morpheus appeared which were easy enough to the technically clueless to use making illegal downloads a simple search and click affair for non-techies and boom - big news. Then the whack-a-mole started and each time they kill off a file sharing service another one pops up. By the time BitTorrent appears the younger generation (and many of the older generation) have basically stopped caring whether content is legal or not and it has gotten so big the authorities now can't stop it.
Now they are trying even increasingly desperate, pointless and unfeasible ways to try and stop it. Even worse is they are poisoning legitimate content with DRM, unskippable ads, FBI warnings and geo-locking making the illegal content far more attractive than legal content seemingly without realising it is totally counter-productive. The authorities are doing far more to accelerate piracy than actual pirates which just goes to prove just how clueless contents providers are. Until legitimate services offer the same or superior content to the illegal ones as a reasonable price the problem won't go away and even then it will just reduce it some as there are always those that want something for free.
@RoninRodent
"...seemingly without realising it is totally counter-productive. The authorities are doing far more to accelerate piracy...
Just like the West is doing to (allegedly) stop terrorism. Funny that.
Makes you think there's method behind the madness.
There is - the bigger the perceived threat, the more liberties they can take away. Legally.
For the children of course...
Remember back when Labour "ran" the country, and Lord Mandelson was on a lovely holiday with his friends in the music industry. Shortly after this holiday, he came back and the Government came up with the digital rights act (the proper name escapes me) - basically the bill that allows the Police to do these types of things.
At the end of the day, to quote Chomsky "Government is there to protect property from the majority". The Police aren't there to protect the tax payer, the normal joe. They are there to protect the interests of the Government's friends.
I would also suspect that soon we will get to a point where anyone who uses Tor or a VPN to access the Internet will be arrested "under suspicion" of accessing websites we shouldn't be accessing. That day will come, and it'll come soon unfortunately.
This post has been deleted by its author
The Police aren't there to protect the tax payer
You don't quite understand that the police is there to make sure the tax payer pays.
But don't worry, Chomsky is also a bit confused in his anarcho-syndicalist ways as he pines for factories run by democratically-run worker commitees. History shows where that kind of operation ends.
"You don't quite understand that the police is there to make sure the tax payer pays."
And there was me with this ridiculous idea that the police were there to enforce the law equally against everyone.
What a silly idealist.
We all know they are there to enforce whatever laws they like (so not enforce some and enforce some non-existant ones) against the people they, or their paymasters don't like.
"I would also suspect that soon we will get to a point where anyone who uses Tor or a VPN to access the Internet will be arrested "under suspicion" of accessing websites we shouldn't be accessing."
Using either WILL get you under the baleful eye of various spooks
"Using either WILL get you under the baleful eye of various spooks"
Using ANY form of encryption will draw attention.
The question is, do you care?
(And I agree with a later poster, the FACT poodles - COLP have massively over reached here. I sincerely hope they try to take it to court).
"The Police aren't there to protect the tax payer, the normal joe."
Of course not, they failed the test.
You only get the full protection of the Law if you're clever enough to legally avoid paying any taxes in the first place!
(At least that's how it appears to work these days.)
@wolfetone
"I would also suspect that soon we will get to a point where anyone who uses Tor or a VPN to access the Internet will be arrested "under suspicion" of accessing websites we shouldn't be accessing. That day will come, and it'll come soon unfortunately."
[carry-on=start]
Nah! As mentioned. It is a business tool. Even a lot of small, home based businesses need to use a VPN for some of their business transactions. I'm just thinking it'd be a lot of work to visit and arrest everyone that uses a VPN through their home Internet account. But who knows? I hope you're wrong.
As with ToR, that has been sick/broken from the beginning. Silk Road is a good example. But who knows how many other people have been arrested that just didn't make it into the media?
I'm concerned with privacy, but I wouldn't use ToR, nor would I recommend it.
[carry-on=finish]
So anyway, just felt like throwing that in :)
Does this mean they'll be traveling even further than Nottingham next week and arresting people in China etc.? Unless they're going to try and class him as an ISP, what law has he broken? Yes, there's a law that says ISPs must block these sites, but there's no law (as far as I know) that says people may not access the site if they can. If they download material, that would be a civil offence under copyright laws, not something for the police.
So, what law exactly is he being held under?
Sounds like the plod and FACT massively overreaching themselves again, although as the politicians are in bed with them, undoubtedly nothing will happen about it. It is about 'copyright theft' (hah hah) after all...............
You can't - Copyright isn't a document or some other tangible object that you have lying around anywhere therefore it is impossible to steal Copyright. Copyright violation... well that's quite a different matter but doesn't make for the right sounding propaganda.
I'm all for creators being adequately rewarded, and the enablers and promoters that they may require being adequately rewarded as well, but starting off with a lie is not the right way to start these things.
"You can't - Copyright isn't a document or some other tangible object that you have lying around anywhere therefore it is impossible to steal Copyright. Copyright violation... well that's quite a different matter but doesn't make for the right sounding propaganda."
Now, I'm all for FACT being violated. If they filmed it, I would even pay to watch it rather than download a pirated version!!
"therefore it is impossible to steal Copyright."
Well, there are thousands of actual artists that would disagree.
(You know the ones that actually make the music and shows we're talking about. For example Gerry Anderson*.)
They have had their copyrights snatched away by the very corporations that are hounding the masses over what they call 'copyright theft'**.
*Another one you might have heard of, Paul McCarthy, although he was allowed to buy them back in the end.
**Not funneling all money to them, in perpetuity, forever and ever, amen!
You can absolutely steal a copyright. Just file a DMCA notice for something that you don't own.
Some people do it for a living. The big publishers do it routinely. (Put a random file on a web server with the name of a current hit song, and see how long it takes.)
Seriously, nobody seems to believe how mind-buggeringly hypocritical these people are. They literally have no shame whatsoever.
This reminds me of the time that a website for the Sinclair Spectrum computer, called "Hackers' Hangout" or the like, was blocked on the grounds of being a "hacking" site. Er yes, it was — in the original and correct sense of "hacking" (programming), not the tabloid "sense" which was the "logic" behind the block.
I nearly got expelled from school for that confusion. I did something-or-other on the computers - I forget just what it was, but it scared the teacher who then accused me of hacking. I admitted to hacking and commenced trying to explain to her the confusion over definitions. This failed miserably - due to both my inexperience in communication and the well-established meaning of the word in her experience, my attempted debate over the word was taken instead as a confession of guilt.
I did hack the school computers in the media sense, too - but not on that occasion.
I did just that - posted lots of music. All pre-1963 and thus public domain in the UK, but I'm still expecting to hear something from a US company that fails to realize this - a lot of it is still covered there.
What I did notice was bots. Lots of bots, for various 'mp3 search' sites indexing my collection and often downloading the whole thing*. Sites that they return links to the files in their search results, resulting in me paying the hosting costs and them pocketing any advertising money.
This stopped when I made progress on replacing most of the mp3 files with ogg files.Seems the bots don't care about those. Not does anyone else: Traffic plumeted. I was hoping to make enough off the advertising to cover at least a fraction of the hosting (It's not expensive), but that's not happening. I'm in pennies-per-month.
*As does Yandex, curiously enough.
"Yes, there's a law that says ISPs must block these sites,"
No, there isn't.
Individual ISPs get court orders to block sites, in civil cases.
This is corporate chestthumping at its best.
You can't be arrested for a non-crime, or for a civil matter unless you've broken a court order (in which case it's a contempt of court charge) .
Note that the actual charges proferred have not been stated and in all liklihood they never will be, because they woulfn't stand up in court.
There have been a number of cases where COLP officers have been found to be operating well outside their jurisdiction and without the knowledge of local forces (to the extreme irritation of those forces, who tend to regard them as a bunch of cowboys)
The COLP are the same group of numpties who try to arrest people for wearing tshirts or holding signs which say "Scientology is a dangerous cult". They are the only "police force" in the UK which is a privately registered company.
COLP are an embarrassment. Half of what they claim to do is fox-guarding-henhouse stuff and the rest should be covered under a proper national agency with proper oversight, as is done in other countries.. They're a guild hangover from medival times and should be limited to the city of london, not behaving as a non-accountable national agency.
@Alan.
"You can't be arrested for a non-crime, or for a civil matter unless you've broken a court order (in which case it's a contempt of court charge) .
Note that the actual charges proferred have not been stated and in all liklihood they never will be, because they woulfn't stand up in court."
I totally agree this should be the case, but as they have arrested the man in question, this would not seem to be true. After all, to arrest someone it has to be 'on suspicion of ..................'. So, what is the last bit? Otherwise, surely this is false imprisonment?
@mad mike:
They can make up whatever reason they want.
The CPS won't touch it with a bargepole as criminal charges would be laughed out of court and he can still sue them for false arrest - police can't do this kind of thing in a civil matter without a court order and even then only to bring someone before a judge.
*Unless* the 'official' of FAST (aka 'private individual') was present as the person making the complaint, I believe he had no right to be present or know beforehand of the action taking place. The individual can probably use that in his defence as part of an 'illegally executed warrant'.
I'm in the UK.
I've been arrested once: about 3 years ago: for breach of the peace. I spent 20 hours or so in a cell and was then unarrested and released.
My crime? I was in bed, asleep, having a bad nightmare which was causing me to shout loudly in my sleep. I don't know what I was shouting, but my window was open and someone called the police.
My first knowledge of anything was being woken by 2 police men barging into my bedroom. (I didn't live alone at the time)
I promise you this is not bullshit.
What is the crime here? It looks to me like they are trying to make an example for others, if we arrest one the rest will give up in fear.
Is this just more proof that the police force of this great country don't really know what they are talking about when it comes to anything technology related?
As has been pointed out above, the Police were not involved. It is the Copyright Goons of London that went in, having been given the right to harass private citizens by some law voted right after some politician got a hefty bonus for changing his mind.
If it had been about kiddie porn, or some other something actually serious, you bet it would have been the Police, but since it is corporate law that has been ruffled, our society has not yet decayed to the point where proper Officers of the Law need be involved.
"Kieron Sharp, director general of the Federation Against Copyright Theft, which also took place in the raids, added:"
What happens if Kieron Sharp, director general of the Federation Against Copyright Theft, is wounded in the raid as instead of a 20 year old nerd a bunch of coloured persons enraged by the BIP are encountered (hypothetically)?
Because they contravene some UK based law, making them illegal.
Viewing or reading certain images or words has been deemed illegal by a group of people who think they know best. To protect the children UK populous from itself and from unwittingly happening upon illegal content and thus breaking the law, it was deemed that it would be pro-active to block access to illegal words and images.
Thus accessing sites on the block list means that you will be breaking the law by viewing illegal content. These sites are blocked *because* they contain illegal content, not because the content might be truthful, exposing, honest, alternative or sincere. All blocked sites are blocked because viewing them would result in illegal activity.
So was the person offering the proxy was encouraging a crime to be committed?
Is this not illegal?
I'd buy him a pint
Your argument is confused at best.
A site that hosts some material that happens to have been placed there illegally - is not, in and of itself, illegal. That's what 'safe harbo(u)r' means.
Viewing or reading certain images or words - has indeed been deemed illegal in the UK. But no-one (as far as I've seen) has alleged a kiddie-porn angle in this case, so that doesn't apply. And copyright law isn't breached merely by viewing a website - the UK Supreme Court ruled on that only last year.
The one contingency in which I might be prepared to concede that there may be a case to answer in this story, is if the guy explicitly advertised his service as helping people to facilitate unlawful copying, or access to illegal material. In that case he might be chargeable with some sort of 'accessory' tag. But if all he was offering was a lawful service that could, potentially, without his knowledge, be misused - then he's no more a criminal than the CEO of any ISP. Probably less.
VPN's and proxies may be legal but expect the copyright police tell Paypal and other payment services to stop processing payments for public VPN services at some point. Rather than make them illegal they will try and bankrupt them out of business.
Someone needs to take the City of London police to court over their confusing name, as they are not real police. Even if they back out before it goes to court, the media attention would be enough to inform everyone that they are actually mickey mouse police. Maybe domain name registrars the other side of the world won't take websites offline after being sent misleading letters from the square mile corporate muscle.
OTOH:
You do not have to say anything. However, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.
Wikipedia says that the "harm" may be thus:
Adverse inferences may be drawn in certain circumstances where before or on being charged, the accused:
fails to mention any fact which he later relies upon and which in the circumstances at the time the accused could reasonably be expected to mention;
fails to give evidence at trial or answer any question;
fails to account on arrest for objects, substances or marks on his person, clothing or footwear, in his possession, or in the place where he is arrested; or
fails to account on arrest for his presence at a place.
Keeping quiet is not always the best policy as they have you coming and going.
If I understand this is another one of those irregular verbs from the English language that gets misused from time to time.
I am in America and I take the fifth,
You are in the UK and therefore guilty until proven innocent,
He is holed up in the Ecuadoran embassy
They are rich and do not get stopped by the police unless given advance notice.
P.
The right to silence was modified a few years ago. Your refusal to answer questions may now be used against you in court. If you have a defence you are supposed to declare it at an early stage.
Apparently criminals know to keep stum until their lawyer is present. Innocent law abiding citizens subjected to a "fishing expedition" are open and co-operative - believing some silly mistake has happened. It is only when a solicitor arrives several hours later that they finally understand the Cardinal Richelieu game the police are playing. They need something, no matter how tenuous, to justify their raid - especially if the confiscated PCs etc give them nothing.
**I read my comments on this subject and despair that the English Police have lost so much of my respect over the years.
Whatever you do if you get arrested. Don't talk to the police
Don't talk to the Police without a solicitor.
If you are arrested, you will be asked if you want the Duty Solicitor. If you don't have your own brief - ask for the Duty Solicitor.
Innocent people inevitably think that common sense will prevail, and they won't need legal representation. This is simply wrong - eveything is stacked against you, and you really, really need a legal eagle to help you out. Especially if you're innocent.
Vic.
How many people will turn out to attend political meetings and demand answers from politicians for all the authoritarian legislation they pass?
NOW is the OPPORTUNITY. Go out and get commitments from these people, it's the only time they listen to you.
How can they arrest someone where there is no law? Conspiracy is two or more people, sometimes three depending on which country, soon it will be reduced to ONE - even thinking about it will be illegal. I'm glad I don't live in the UK!
Well, I can really rest easy now, knowing that this alleged dastardly criminal mastermind has been apprehended. He has really affected my life in so many ways and obviously deserves to be sent down for a goodly number of years for all the distress and trauma I have suffered from his unblocking of websites.
This sort of activity of going after easy targets does the police's image no good at all. All the time and effort lavished on this affair should be utilised in a much more productive way - like catching murderers, burglars, muggers and rapists but it seems they take a very low priority compared to working as an unofficial security force for the film and entertainment industry. The whole thing stinks in my opinion.
Let's say you lived in the US, and you missed a Dr. Who episode you wanted to see. If you didn't Tivo it, you're kind of screwed.
BBC streams recent episodes, but only to folks who live in the UK.
If you could find a proxy, you could watch that Dr. Who episode on the BBC web site via the proxy, against the rules.
Whether the rules seem silly or not isn't really the point. If they said you couldn't watch it unless you put on a red dress and stood on one foot, that's their right, and you can either put on that dress, or not watch the program.
An American using a proxy to use the UK's iPlayer to catch up would be naughty, as they've only paid their cable/network subscription. If their network only has a broadcast license from BBC Worldwide and doesn't offer it on-demand/catch-up, then yes, they're stealing.
But conversely, my parents live in India for Dad's work purposes. They have a TV licence for their house here in the UK.
They use a proxy to get to iPlayer, which is not available in India as most Indians are not license fee payers. They however, are merely accessing a service they have paid for, and which is freely available to anyone in the UK, regardless of whether they have a TV license or not (yes, you're supposed to, and it does warn you that you shouldn't use iPlayer if you don't have a license, but it doesn't stop you).
Is that illegal? Debatable. Probably less dubious than the woman who bought a Greek Sky Sport subscription for her pub because it was cheaper. Sky tried to have her for unlawful interception of signals, which the court threw out because she had paid for it, and wasn't getting it for free.
The fact Sky use different pricing across the EU is their problem. Trying to enforce it is illegal, as JCB found out in the 90s when the EU stung them for ~£20m in fines.
@ AC 12:42
No, you do not need a TV license to watch iPlayer. "You don't need a licence if you don't use any of these devices to watch or record television programmes as they're being shown on TV - for example, if you use your TV only to watch DVDs or play video games, or you only watch ‘catch up’ services like BBC iPlayer or 4oD." http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/how-to-tell-us-you-dont-watch-tv-top12
You only need a license to watch broadcast TV, whether you watch on a TV, laptop or any other device. If you do not own a TV, computer tuner device or watch live TV via the BBC website, and are only using the iPlayer app on your phone, you do not need one.
I do not have a TV and have not watched broadcast TV at home for over a year. I do not have a TV license.
" BBC streams recent episodes, but only to folks who live in the UK.
If you could find a proxy, you could watch that Dr. Who episode on the BBC web site via the proxy, against the rules."
Actually, (although I haven't checked this for a year or so), the CDNs that BBC Iplayer use to deliver programmes are *not* restricted geographically. In fact, you can even get a 'restricted' program in the US straight from a US based CDN!
All the restriction etc. are done on the website side. Once you gave a valid rtmp/rtmpe URL it will work from anywhere.
You can easily test this out - download get_iplayer - configure it to use a UK proxy. then monitor your network.
You'll see the actual video file comes direct via your nearest CDN.
Facebook do similar with photos and videos - it doesn't matter what restrictions you put on your photos/videos, the URL of the actual media file is unrestricted.
I was wondering if this was to do with the seizure of the domain(s) for the Immunicity proxy service and according to torrentfreak it was.
Police Arrest Operator of Torrent Site Proxies | TorrentFreak
"Initially it appeared that the domain seizures were the result of a request PIPCU sent to the domain registrar, as happened previously with other ‘pirate’ domains. However, as more information came in this case turned out to be different.
City of London Police inform TorrentFreak that they actually arrested the alleged owner of the domain names. The 20-year-old man from Nottingham was interviewed at a local police station and later released on bail.
Pending further investigation he agreed to voluntarily transfer the domains to the police."
(...)
"Commenting on the arrest, FACT Director Kieron Sharp argues that these proxy sites and services are just as illegal as the blocked sites themselves. "
"Commenting on the arrest, FACT Director Kieron Sharp argues that these proxy sites and services are just as illegal as the blocked sites themselves. "
Which, translating from legal weaselese is a statement of nothing at all:
AFAIK the sites themselves are not strictly illegal, however they have been blocked by civil orders anyway.
you can just use a local proxy like proxomitron and edit the headers so they are something like
In = FALSE
Out = TRUE
Key = "HTTP/1.1 303 Moved Temporarily"
Match = "*"
Replace = "HTTP/1.1 304 Not Modified"
In = FALSE
Out = FALSE
Key = "HTTP/1.1 [0-9][0-9][0-9] Moved Temporarily"
URL = "*"
Match = "HTTP/1.1 [0-9][0-9][0-9] Moved Temporarily"
Replace = "HTTP/1.1 200 OK"
In = FALSE
Out = FALSE
Key = "If-Modified-Since: Always reload pages (Out)"
Match = "*"
In = FALSE
Out = FALSE
Key = "Last-Modified: (In)"
Match = "*"
In = FALSE
Out = TRUE
Key = "Location: http://www.t-zones.co.uk/cop/adult"
Match = "*"
Replace = "src"
This is harassment, coercion, libel and theft, for BS, real offences!
If these 'police' do have criminal police powers, then assert wrongful arrest with them or the Metropolitan Police. Also do them for several civil and criminal offenses including fraud, harassment, libel, coercion, theft (of domain addresses) etc. preferably for damages too. There must be some legal people who'd like a speculative go at them.
These corporate pigs need to be hurt and put out of business.
Why is this corporate group being allowed to brand themselves as 'police' and being allowed to supposedly arrest people for what the real police would regard as a strictly civil matter...
Come on British sheeple WAKE UP, Wall Street shouldn't be able to go around dictating policies, let alone illegally arresting detaining people on charges that any non-bribed judges would instantly throw out.
And how about literally LIMITING what someone can read/watch...?
To me the former is totally against any democratic setup, the latter is the square opposite of freedom, both regardless how all the media scumbags and their unabashed mouthpieces try to present it otherwise... (Hello, Mr Biden and your good friend, ex-Sen Dodd, now head of the MPAA - how are you two doing today, can any of you tell us who'll the MPAA arrest next time overseas, preferably in a local SWAT operation and what kind of utterly and laughably fake stats you will present against the resulting shitstorm?)
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Spacedinvader
Facepalm
Google next then?
Their cache servers allow me to do the same thing
Hate quoting myself but when I first heard about ISPs being told to block I did the obvious, not go for a VPN or hide my ass, Google. Google farm damn near every torrent site and their cache servers contain the magnet links, want a pirate? Do no evil.
I've not paid the film/music cartels a penny for over a decade. How? 2nd hand purchases thanks to everyones least favourite but monopolistic auction site, and amazon. Oh and google if you're struggling to find a decent proxy to get to those first two sites. You see ISPs have been ordered to block them due to encouraging and facilitating massive scale piracy, the buying and selling of 2nd hand media. Wha... wait, not blocked? I don't understand!
Catch me if you can, City of London police. BTW you can find me at your golf club. I've got a job for you. Payment in cash. And dinners. And how about a trip to Nottinghamshire.
Have the CoL police not got anything better to do, what with all those financial irregularities going on in their patch? What, solved and the perpetrators punished? Oh right, jolly good then, carry on.
Lovely that the police are protecting the public from nefarious types that provide Internet services allowing access to sites very rich people and the corporations that run them object to. As a bonus - it makes life so much safer for rapists and thieves and assorted other baddies that police resources devoted to stopping downloads of the latest in Hollywood tripe are not available to thwart actual evil.
That's how the industry needs to be dragged into the 21st century.
Let's look back in time a little.....where DVDs were once released in certain geographical regions even before a movie might hit the theatres elsewhere in the world. Result: region-free DVD players and lots of personally-imported DVDs. It took a few years but finally, it's more of a global playing field.
The Game of Thrones problem is also a good example. Everyone wants it but it's released in a specific place on a specific network...so gets pirated something rotten.
Today's society doesn't want to wait for what they want. If you don't provide people with that, they're now empowered to get what they want right now. So the industry needs to change and meet the expectations and demands of the consumer. And this sort of activity is helping with that shift.
What confuses me is why this bloke is doing this - is he running a "piratebay proxy" (don't Google such things, it may lead to theft!! :D)
Beer. As in free. All beer should also be free....email me some :D
"The Game of Thrones problem is also a good example. Everyone wants it but it's released in a specific place on a specific network...so gets pirated something rotten."
Actually it's a good example of the way things will be.
It got pirated something rotten and the producers wore that as a badge of pride. Their only stated worry was that if the pirated versions were "too good", people wouldn't buy the DVDs.
Disney are one of the worst as they abuse the "you may not skip this" DVD functionality to foist trailers on the viewers. One of the great things about DVDs compared to the old VHS tapes was that you didn't have to fast forward through 30m of crap just to get to the film, however Disney reintroduced this by abusing the DVD standard.
I have a pile of unopened Disney DVDs and just watch downloaded copies instead as a result.
Given the current tactic seems be "Block the IP resulting from a DNS query", I can see them shortly resort to "just redirect the whole damn domain", followed by "just block access to DNS".
Because they are that stupid.
Incidentally, the court order to block a site (ala BitTorrent) - doesn't that just apply "to the ISP", rather than it's customers? As (IANAL) customers are not subject to the order - although they are impacted by the ISPs compliance with it, gaining access via other methods (another DNS/IP, or VPN) is not the fault of the ISP, or a breach of an order against it's customers, because one doesn't exist.....?
It actually only applies to the few "BIG" ISP's; anyone with less than a certain number of subscribers (1million???), doesnt have to implement the block, so I can go visit the P1r@t3 B@y any time I want.
Weirdly, the ONLY website I cannot access is a perfectly legitimate US radio streaming service that now seems to be blocked in the UK; I can access the website, but not any of the streams, despite being a subscriber for many years.
Orwell didnt know the half if it!!!
It's good to see that so many people and so much money are mobilized to prevent such dangerous crimes, which can destroy our societies and our way of living. We have to thank all these governments to protect us from that terrible danger which is copyright infringement, one of the most vicious attack against the western world. That guy should considered himself as lucky, jet fighters should have destroy his home, which would have been an appropriate and proportionate response to his monstrous actions.
“We will come down hard on people believed to be committing or deliberately facilitating such offences.”
Channel 4 Dispatches revealed about 2 weeks ago, about the burgeoning number of illegal/unlawful unlicensed Faith Schools, that the Dept for Education have systematically being fannying around and not really shutting them down.
How about some “We will come down hard on people believed to be committing or deliberately facilitating such offences.”, or, just another manifestation of police wasting time on relatively minor internet crime, and not tackling the big issues as they are shit scared of being labelled as racist/anti-religion human rights claptrap.
Unless it has been repealed while I wasn't looking, you can be charged with conspiracy to do something and it doesn't have to be an illegal thing! Up to 99 years clink time.
So this 'perp' could be charged with conspiring to provide access to the sites.
Remember the guy who got bird for digging up a cricket pitch (or poring oil on it) during a test match as a form of protest? He was charged with conspiring to trespass, found guilty and got 5 years (IIRC). Trespass was not at the time a criminal act of itself in the UK.
FFS People. The guy got nicked because he was dickhead.. Accessing embargoed content through vpn's or whatever for you own personal amusement is one thing. Setting up a website and offer that service to others is something that will generally rub those who think they're in control up the wrong way and if you're in their jurisdiction then you'll probably have to buy anew front door.
" ...then you'll probably have to buy a new front door."
Having to buy a new front door just because of those "who think they're in control" is what happens in banana republics and dictatorships.
You miss the point of the UK supposedly being a nation of laws. If there's actually one rule for them and another for us, why should anyone respect or obey the law?
As I stated at the time it's a fairly obvious case of misconduct in public office - we can't have the police be directed by private companies like this running around doing their bidding.
If they have an issue and they think the chap is in contempt of court (and he plainly isn't/wasn't) they should be taking civil action and the CoLP should have said as much. It isn't by any stretch a criminal matter and the CoLP should/will know this.
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