Now There's A Concept: Newspapers Should Add Value To The News

As Expected, IFPI 'Advertising' Helps Boost BitTorrent Search Site

from the the-definition-of-insanity dept

Wed, Mar 12th 2008 7:26pm — Mike Masnick

For a group that claims it's focused on "educating" people, the recording industry seems amazingly thickheaded in learning lessons itself. Just last week the IFPI succeeded in having an Israeli court demand that Israeli ISPs block bittorrent search site HttpShare. As we noted in that post, this would likely act as tremendous advertising for HttpShare -- and, indeed, that's exactly what has happened. The site claims that traffic has jumped, even requiring the site owners to upgrade the hardware hosting the site -- all thanks to a little "IFPI Advertising."

What's most stunning, however, is that the IFPI didn't realize this would happen. After all, it's happened again and again and again. In fact, just a month ago, a similar action in Denmark over the Pirate Bay greatly increased traffic to the site. Hell, the Pirate Bay first came to international attention (beyond a much smaller niche group of users) after the IFPI pressured gov't officials to take the site down. Of course, rather than recognize this, the IFPI and the RIAA (and the MPAA at times as well) always claim that each of these "shut downs" is a "significant blow" against piracy. Apparently, they never consider what happens next. Makes you think that the execs and lawyers at the recording industry probably aren't very good chess players.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: ifpi, ireland, isps, liability, safe harbor
Companies: httpshare, ifpi

13 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 12 Mar 2008 @ 7:44pm

Chess? Serious?

How good do they play Twister??
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Joe, 12 Mar 2008 @ 8:02pm

Slow Learners
Not so good at whack-a-mole either.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
SSX, 12 Mar 2008 @ 8:37pm

Not a clue
But they seem to be very adept at hangman. At least the part of the game involving hanging themselves.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
WorkingInDust, 12 Mar 2008 @ 9:21pm

For their mentality
Chutes and Ladders seems a bit more fitting for them considering their level of intelligence
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 12 Mar 2008 @ 9:56pm

Manchurian Candidates Committing Streisand Effects
...while the rest of us watch the show and chuckle.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
inc, 12 Mar 2008 @ 10:14pm

Thanks IFPI.. got a new torrent site
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
mike allen, 13 Mar 2008 @ 1:32am

never heard of it til today
subject line says it all!!!!!!!!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
ah irony, 13 Mar 2008 @ 3:44am

Wow, more torrent sites
Heh, yet another one who found out about them through IFPI advertising. Noticed they even opened an English discussion forum due to all the influx of international people thanks to it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Lisa Westveld, 13 Mar 2008 @ 4:05am

Of course it's a significant blow...
These significant blows are very useful to boost piracy and thus provide the RIAA with proper evidence of how bad things are. They need more pirates so they can justify their own actions. First the piracy problem in Israel was just a minor thing, not worth much attention. After this blow it suddenly becomes much more popular to visit a piracy site and thus they create the evidence that shows how much piracy there is. They promote piracy so they can make a better case against it.

Pretty smart strategy, if you ask me. Very successful too. Now they can push governments and ISPs into introducing packet filtering to fight copyright violations at the core. This is exactly what they want.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 13 Mar 2008 @ 6:51am
  
  Re: Of course it's a significant blow...
  "Pretty smart strategy, if you ask me. Very successful too. Now they can push governments and ISPs into introducing packet filtering to fight copyright violations at the core. This is exactly what they want."
  
  Even if that's the case and various government to introduce packet filtering it won't stop copyright violations. All it will do is push it deeper underground with much better methods of hiding what's actually being transmitted.
  
  I agree that piracy is in the best interests of these agencies, without it they'd be out of a job.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 13 Mar 2008 @ 12:21pm

Checkers.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Fushta, 14 Mar 2008 @ 3:51pm

A significant blow...Really?
Can you plug up the holes in a dam with your fingers?

How many fingers/toes does the entertainment industry have left?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 18 Mar 2008 @ 10:33am

cool...I'll have to check that site out
[ link to this | view in chronology ]