TorrentFreak Email Update |
- The Pirate Bay: PIPA/SOPA Won’t Stop Us!
- ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Lawyer Suspended For 2 Years
- The Pirate Bay Launches Promo Platform For Artists
| The Pirate Bay: PIPA/SOPA Won’t Stop Us! Posted: 17 Jan 2012 04:36 AM PST
But on the horizon looms threats of a different kind, the PIPA and SOPA bills. While SOPA has been put on hold temporarily, the PIPA bill is going full steam ahead. If it passes, The Pirate Bay and other torrent sites may be the first to be targeted. Depending on the final text of the bills, these sites may be blocked by ISPs, censored by search engines, and in some cases they may even lose their domain names. These developments cause some concern among the people running The Pirate Bay, but interestingly enough they don’t fear for themselves. “Of course we’re worried. Not so much for The Pirate Bay, as there are many workarounds, but for democratic reasons,” a Pirate Bay insider told TorrentFreak. Indeed, recent history has shown that no matter what technical measures are put in use to block The Pirate Bay, the site and its users find ways around it. Whether it’s a backup domain, alternative DNS-servers or proxy sites, PIPA and SOPA can be easily circumvented. In addition, the site’s advertising partners don’t fall within reach of the US Government. Anticipating future censorship, The Pirate Bay yesterday released a modified version of the CGIPROXY software so anyone with access to a webserver can easily start their own Pirate Bay proxy. And since The Pirate Bay plans to ditch .torrent files completely, the resources that have to be invested are minimal. For opponents of the PIPA and SOPA bills, The Pirate Bay’s stance is yet even more ammunition to get the pending legislation thrown out completely. When even the biggest target isn’t worried at all, why put the future of the Internet at risk? The Pirate Bay itself is amazed by the unprecedented power the entertainment industry has in Washington. “It’s crazy what politicians will do in the name of copyright! They are either totally paid off, stupid or copyright holders. Or all of them – that’s not as uncommon as you might think. The worst part is that it’s so obvious that pretty much everyone in and outside the US, including major corporations, are against this bill,” the Pirate Bay insider said. “The minority will now decide to get to control the majority, for reasons that only help the minority and not society as a whole. It’s disgusting. If the law was discussed in Iran or China, we might understand it – and criticize it just as much. But this… come on!” The Pirate Bay urges the International community to take a clear stand in the issue, preventing the US from taking control of the Internet. The European Parliament set the first step in this direction recently, by condemning domain name seizures, but there is still a long way to go according to The Pirate Bay. “It’s obvious that the US has too much influence on the internet and the world’s politics. SOPA/PIPA is one of many newer laws that is passed in the US but really is in effect outside of their borders. The UN and other bodies should actually fight back and say that this is not OK, ” the insider said. “The internet is a global infrastructure and can’t be run in one single country. Besides fighting SOPA, we must also take away the possibility for a single country to rule over the global infrastructure.” For now, however, the battle is far from over. SOPA can be revived any minute and PIPA is still very much alive and up for vote in Congress next week. As a protest, many websites large and small will go on strike tomorrow, but not The Pirate Bay, for the torrent site it’s business as usual. Source: The Pirate Bay: PIPA/SOPA Won’t Stop Us!
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| ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Lawyer Suspended For 2 Years Posted: 16 Jan 2012 07:00 AM PST
But bad publicity and intense controversy greeted the law firm and its owner Andrew Crossley at every turn and eventually the company went bust. Today, Crossley faced the ultimate shame as a lawyer, by appearing before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT). Despite previous displays of stubborn bravado, according to 'Speculative Invoicing' expert Will Gilmour who was in court today, Crossley disputed only one of the seven charges against him. Firstly, the charge that he allowed his independence to be compromised and acted in a manner contrary to the best interests of his clients – ironically the copyright holders on whose behalf he extracted cash settlements from the public – was not contested. Crossley, whose disastrous foray into this controversial work was laid bare when his company documents were leaked onto the web in 2010, lodged no dispute against claims that he acted in a way that was likely to diminish the trust the public places in him or in the legal profession. The fourth accusation, that Crossley “Entered into arrangements to receive contingency fees for work done in prosecuting or defending contentious proceedings before the Courts of England and Wales except as permitted by statute or the common law” was also met with acceptance from the lawyer. Furthermore, Crossley did not contest that he acted where there was a “conflict of interest in circumstances not permitted, in particular because there was a conflict with those of his clients,” nor that he “used his position as a Solicitor to take or attempt to take unfair advantage of other persons being recipients of letters of claim either for his own benefit or for the benefit of his clients.” The only point contested by Crossley related to an SRA/SDT accusation that he acted improperly in connection with data breaches from ACS:Law’s website during 2010. Crossley pointed the finger at the company’s web host for allegedly leaving a backup of the lawfirm’s data in a publicly accessible area. In their decision announced just a few moments ago, the Tribunal suspended Crossley from operating as a lawyer for 2 years and ordered him to pay costs of £77,000. While opponents had hoped for a permanent ban, the lengthy suspension will be seen as a huge black mark against his reputation. Also revealed in the hearing was the personal cost to the now-suspended lawyer. In addition to being unable to find work since the revelations against him, Crossley remains bankrupt and has split from his partner of 15 years. Source: ACS:Law Anti-Piracy Lawyer Suspended For 2 Years
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| The Pirate Bay Launches Promo Platform For Artists Posted: 16 Jan 2012 05:10 AM PST
Today the largest torrent site on the Internet rolled out a new promotion platform for filmmakers, musicians, writers and all other artists alike. To help them reach an audience of tens of millions of people, The Pirate Bay is offering the artists a prime advertising spot on the site’s homepage, replacing the iconic logo. True to The Pirate Bay spirit, the Promo Bay campaigns are free of charge. “As you might have seen we sometimes replace our front page logo with others. Sometimes we link to important political issues like internet censorship and sometimes it’s to some cool indie musicians we like. We would now like to improve this feature,” The Pirate Bay announces. Artists who want to participate have to offer something free in return, so a link to the iTunes store wont work, but apart from that pretty much anything goes. The promos can be targeted to a maximum of 3 countries, but if an artist manages to impress the Pirate Bay team, they may choose to promote it worldwide. The Pirate Bay is no stranger to helping out artists. The site has been one of the key partners of the indie movie distribution platform VODO, and they’ve also run several promotional campaigns for content creators on their own. On the other hand, many artists are already releasing their work voluntarily on The Pirate Bay, and not just basement bands either. To promote their new single, Radiohead turned to The Pirate Bay in 2009, and Nine Inch Nails have made pretty much all their music available on the torrent site. Best selling author Paulo Coelho is another dedicated fan of The Pirate Bay, sharing his books on there every time his publisher looks away. "I am openly supporting their site,” Coelho told TorrentFreak when the site’s founders were defending themselves in a Swedish court. There is little doubt that the new promotion platform will be welcomed by artist all across the globe. Perhaps there will even be a few established names that sign up who want to take advantage of this free advertising opportunity. To those who are about to try we have one piece of advice; please make sure your website can handle the load – with 1.8 billion page views a month a worldwide promotion can be quite a hit. Source: The Pirate Bay Launches Promo Platform For Artists
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The Pirate Bay is no stranger to being censored. Finland, Denmark and Italy are just a few of the many countries where ISPs have been ordered to make the website inaccessible to their users.
By now the story is well known. Law firm Davenport Lyons initiated the now-infamous anti-piracy settlement work in the UK but backed out due to bad publicity. ACS:Law, somehow thinking things would be different for them, took on the work expecting an easy ride.
For many independent artists obscurity is a bigger problem than piracy, but it's a problem that The Pirate Bay hopes to solve.| You are subscribed to email updates from TorrentFreak To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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