Pirate Bay Block Initiates Streisand Cascade, Drives Record Traffic

from the well-that-worked-out-great,-huh? dept

When the news broke that the UK's High Court ordered ISPs to censor the Pirate Bay, we (like many people) pointed out that the block would be largely ineffective. But for now, with the ISPs starting to implement their blocks (Virgin has theirs up and running) and the Pirate Bay all over the news, it's having the opposite effect. TorrentFreak reports that the Pirate Bay just had their biggest traffic day ever. And, naturally, they're using the momentum to teach UK visitors how to bypass the block.

“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,” a Pirate Bay insider informed TorrentFreak today.

“We should write a thank you note to the BPI,” he added.

...

“Another thing that’s good with the traffic surge is that we now have time to teach even more people how to circumvent Internet censorship,” the insider added.

Of course, there will still almost certainly be a drop in UK traffic once all the ISPs have blocks in place, but in the long run it probably won't do anything to stop piracy or even to stop the Pirate Bay specifically. As EFF founder John Gilmore famously said in 1993, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it"—and nearly twenty years later, not only does that still hold, it has become true of the people on the net as well.

Filed Under: censorship, isp, uk
Companies: the pirate bay

UK High Court Expands Censorship Regime: Orders The Pirate Bay To Be Blocked

from the and-so-it-goes dept

This was mostly expected since earlier this year, but the UK's High Court has now ordered a bunch of ISPs to block The Pirate Bay. This is pretty unfortunate, given that we were just talking about how UK-based musician Dan Bull used The Pirate Bay to help him get on the charts. That avenue is about to be closed off to up and coming musicians... all because the legacy recording industry remains too closed-minded to figure out how to adapt and provide consumers what they want. And, of course, the blockade won't even be remotely effective. Lots of people will just use VPNs or proxies to get what they want anyway. Even more ridiculous is that it will hinder perfectly legitimate activity. Just a few weeks ago I was in the UK, and I was doing some research on The Pirate Bay's "Promo Bay." I wouldn't have been able to do that if The Pirate Bay was blocked. I did nothing illegal, and yet the UK courts want to treat it as such. That's sad.

Filed Under: censorship, dan bull, isp, promo bay, proxy, vpn
Companies: the pirate bay

Hurt Locker Producers Now Understand The Copyright Troll Shakedown Better: Sue 2,514 More Defendants

from the follow-the-bounding-ball dept

Voltage Pictures, the maker of The Hurt Locker, was one of the first companies to bring ridiculous copyright trolling practices to the US, where they sue thousands of people based solely on a questionably-sourced IP address. In fact, last year, the company sued nearly 25,000 people in one shot for supposedly file sharing the movie. Of course, the goal is not to actually go to court on any of these cases. Instead, it's just about getting people to pay up -- and so these "companies" are adapting.. And, as TorrentFreak noes, it appears that Voltage Pictures, (with an assist from Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver -- the tiny DC law firm that started "US Copyright Group" to do these kinds of cases, but which has gone nowhere) hasn't learned not to do this any more. It's just suing another 2,514 people for sharing, pretty much guaranteeing that no kids ever want to work for them in the future. However, it's also learned a few other things -- including how to get around the fact that many ISPs are pushing back on these kinds of things. For example, while plenty of ISPs have fought back against these lawsuits, in this lawsuit, Voltage Pictures only sued users who were subscribers of Charter Communications. Charter has shown a willingness to hand over such data when asked. So one way to avoid having ISPs challenge you in court is to focus on the ISP least likely to challenge your notices. Also, the new lawsuit is filed in Florida, which seems to have become the breeding ground for these kinds of troll fights lately -- so apparently Voltage and Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver think that perhaps this case might last long enough for them to get enough names and get enough people to pay to make it worthwhile. It would be nice if the court were to kill off the subpoena and note that it appears to be an abuse of power again.

Filed Under: hurt locker, isp, shakedown
Companies: us copyright group

The Stupidity Of Data Caps: No One Knows What A Megabyte Is

from the caps-don't-work dept

We've argued that data caps for internet access are silly, and even as they're becoming more popular for both wired and wireless broadband data offerings, it seems more people are recognizing this. The NY Times has an article about data caps that makes the key point upfront: no one knows what a megabyte is:

But what, exactly, is a megabyte?

If a sampling of pedestrians on the streets of Brooklyn is any guide, most people have only a vague idea. One said a megabyte was “the amount of something we have to use the Internet,” adding, “We should have three or four.”

Miranda Popkey, 24, was closer: “It’s a measure of how much information you store. If there are too many of them, I can’t send my e-mail attachment.”

A megabyte is, in this context, 1,000 kilobytes — or about the size of a photo taken with a decent digital camera, or roughly one minute of a song, or a decent stack of e-mail.

Therein lies the problem: Counting things like minutes and text messages is fairly easy, but there is no intuitive or natural way to gauge data use.

It's actually much worse than that. The fact that it's not easy to mentally keep track of these things without significant effort means that there's a real extra cognitive cost in using broadband with caps. You have to sit there and think about what you want to do online. You have to think:

1. How much room do I have before I hit the cap?
2. How much data will this content actually take up?
3. What if I'm wrong?
4. How much does it cost if I go over?
5. Wait, what if this is taking up a lot more data then I thought?
6. How much more data will I need this month?
7. No, seriously, what if I confused things and watching this video uses up my entire allotment?

Etc. It can go on and on like this -- and the really serious problem is the fact that this cognitive cost is a very real cost, and it means people will just do less online, and will avoid using the service altogether. The caps are adding a punishment to something that people want to do, meaning that they'll do less of it, and therefore value it less.

It still amazes me how short-sighted many ISPs are that they aren't looking to capitalize on this more by competing by getting rid of caps. Of course, one key reason is that there just isn't that much competition, and so the short-sighted view can win for the time being. But it's a dangerous long-term strategy. Pissing off customers as a business model isn't a very good idea.

Filed Under: broadband, data caps, isp, megabyte

ISP Sued For Revealing Info On US-Based Critic Of Thai Laws

from the shame-on-netfirms dept

We've been talking a lot about the importance of anonymity online, and are always sad to hear about companies that simply rollover in identifying anonymous users for no good reason. A newly filed lawsuit reveals a particularly ridiculous situation, summarized nicely by Paul Alan Levy:

Anthony Chai, a naturalized US citizen who emigrated from Thailand, runs a computer store in California.  Using the store's computers, Chai and his customers posted anonymous comments critical of the king of Thailand on a Thai-language pro-democracy website, Manusaya.com.  Thailand forbids criticism of the king – the legal principle of lese majeste – and when the Canadian Internet hosting firm Netfirms (which is incorporated in Delaware and maintains a US office) received a complaint from the Thai government, it not only shut down the web site but provided Chai’s IP address and two e-mail addresses associated with the posts.  Thailand has long shown its insistence on applying the principle even to criticism voiced in other countries, when the speakers expose themselves to its authority by, for example, visiting the country. 

When Chai was home visiting family in Thailand, he was detained at the airport and subjected to extensive questioning and to threats of violence against his family both in the United States and in Thailand.  He was also repeatedly questioned in the United States, with prosecutors using the threat of prosecution, and dangling and threatened with prosecution.  The prosecutor also demanded expensive gifts.  Chai has been officially charged in the Thai courts with lèse majesté, and consequently he can no longer return to his native land to visit his family.  Ironically, most of Chai's posts were directed at the injustice of the lese majeste laws, rather than at the Thai king himself.

We've pointed out how Thailand has been known to overreact to criticism of its king before, and this is even more crazy, seeing as Chai was mainly criticizing the laws that make criticizing the king illegal. But, the other key issue here is the fact that Netfirms simply handed over Chai's info, without consideration of whether or not that was appropriate or if it violated Chai's rights. It also handed over the info without "requesting that the officials obtain the proper court order, supboena, or warrant as required by the Treaty with Thailand on Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters." Chai is now suing Netfirms, claiming negligence and violation of California laws, including its constitutional right to privacy. Should be an interesting case to watch.

Filed Under: isp, privacy, thailand
Companies: netfirms

ISP Tries To Charge Users To Block File Sharing... Ends Up Installing Malware That Exposes Private Info

from the nicely-done,-Orange,-nicely-done dept

Jaime Novoa was the first of a few of you to point us to a series of links about how French ISP Orange has started offering a service to let subscribers pay 2 euros to "block" file sharing services on their connection. The theory, of course, is that this service "protects" you from getting any strikes. Of course, you could also do that for free -- by limiting yourself and encrypting your connection, but that's a separate story. Beyond the fact that this system involves a secret blacklist that could very well block legitimate uses as well, lots of folks started digging into the service and discovered that the software in question is basically malware and ridiculously insecure that more or less broadcasts the private info of anyone who uses it for anyone else to see. So, not only is the program costly, limiting and useless, but it's a massive security and privacy problem as well. All because of three strikes/Hadopi.

Filed Under: blocking, file sharing, france, hadopi, isp, malware, security, three strikes
Companies: orange

UK ISP Says It Will Not Follow Digital Economy Bill Rules

from the civil-isp-disobedience dept

As anger towards the Digital Economy Bill grows, some are fighting back against the bill in a variety of ways. ISP Talk Talk, who had been vocally against the bill ever since it was first proposed, has apparently now announced that it will not follow the more draconian aspects of the law. In an official blog post by the company, it says that it will fight in court any attempt to force it to do things it feels are unwise, and will continue to fight against the law politically:

After the election we will resume highlighting the substantial dangers inherent in the proposals and that the hoped for benefits in legitimate sales will not materialise as filesharers will simply switch to other undetectable methods to get content for free.

In the meantime we stand by our pledges to our customers:

• Unless we are served with a court order we will never surrender a customer's details to rightsholders. We are the only major ISP to have taken this stance and we will maintain it.
• If we are instructed to disconnect an account due to alleged copyright infringement we will refuse to do so and tell the rightsholders we'll see them in court.

Who knows if it will actually help, but it is nice to see an ISP willing to not just give in at this point.

Filed Under: digital economy bill, isp, united kingdom

Instead Of Suing Each Other Over Who Can Claim 'Most Reliable' Why Not Invest In Making A More Reliable Network?

from the wasting-money dept

Ah, for the love of puffery. A few years ago, we were among those who noticed that pretty much every mobile operator in the US had commercials making some sort of claim about how they were the "best" network out there, whether it was "most reliable," "most powerful," or "fewest dropped calls." The whole thing is a joke and I doubt anyone takes those sorts of claims very seriously. But soon afterwards, the lawyers got involved, and lawsuits were filed over who could claim what about their networks in commercials. Even the Better Business Bureau felt the need to weigh in.

Now, it looks like a similar battle is playing out up north. Rob Hyndman points us to the news that there are a series of lawsuits in Canada over similar claims concerning broadband internet access, with one company being upset that another company has commercials claiming to have the "fastest and most reliable" broadband offering.

Here's an idea: rather than wasting money suing each other over these sorts of claims, why not invest some money into actually improving the network?

Filed Under: advertising, isp, lawsuits, networks, reliability

Only ISP In Town Pulling Plug On Suspected File Sharers With No Recourse [Update]

from the guilt-by-accusation dept

With all the talk about various "three strikes" plans to kick accused (but not convicted) file sharers off the internet, it appears that one ISP, called Kaloo, in the UK has taken this to an extreme: it's kicking people off on the first accusation of infringement, with no warning, and the only way to get reconnected is to sign a form admitting guilt and promising not to do it again. Even worse? It's the only ISP in town, so people who get kicked off are basically without an internet connection. What's really odd is that the ISP doesn't seem to recognize how a complete lack of due process is a problem, calling the program "reasonable" and suggesting it "protects people from illegal activity." No, actually, it doesn't. It cuts people off from what's increasingly a vital communications system without any real proof or due process. Doesn't that seem like a problem? Update: With all the fuss and publicity from the BBC article the ISP seems to have agreed to change its policy to a "three strikes" one. That's still not great, but better than the one strike plan.

Filed Under: copyright, hull, isp, one strike, three strikes, uk
Companies: karoo

Rogers Back To Inserting Its Messages Onto Others' Websites

from the creepy-intrusions dept

Back in 2007, we wrote about how Canadian ISP Rogers was inserting its own content into certain webpages, such as Google's. The company was basically putting messages at the top to let people know they were using up their metered bandwidth limit. While it's nice that they were trying to better inform users, the methods were highly questionable -- injecting content into someone else's website just seemed creepy and intrusive. Rogers backed down... however, Michael Geist is reporting that some people have started seeing the notifications injected into their surfing yet again. In this case, it's not about bandwidth metering, but about parental controls. Either way, it seems bad. I'm sure Rogers wants better ways to communicate with customers, but shoving messages into the webpage they're surfing just seems excessive.

Filed Under: canada, inserted content, isp
Companies: rogers