TorrentFreak

It is no secret that Hollywood is trying to take down as many pirated movies as they can, but their targeting of a Creative Commons Pirate Bay documentary is something new. Viacom, Paramount, Fox and Lionsgate have all asked Google to take down links pointing to the Pirate Bay documentary TPB-AFK. But is it a secret plot to silence the voices of the Pirate Bay’s founders, or just another screw up of automated DMCA takedowns?

Earlier this week TorrentFreak received information to suggest that the recording industry is planning a fresh trip to the UK High Court to have even more torrent sites blocked at the ISP level. If they’re successful there will only be one torrent site from the current world top ten not censored in the region. However, news travels fast and according to the leading Pirate Bay and KAT proxy operators, preparations are already under way to circumvent the blockades.

Earlier this month the major labels of the UK recording industry succeeded in having three major torrent sites blocked at the ISP level. KickassTorrents, H33T and Fenopy all disappeared from the screens of users not using a VPN or proxy, yielding some interesting results on the way. Data provided by Google suggests that not only did the blocks encourage a large fresh interest in other torrent sites and BitTorrent in general, official media outlets received more interest too.

The New York Public Library is a bastion of public information and knowledge. While this may be true “on paper”, the library has a surprisingly restrictive Internet filter. The result is that many websites are censored in NYPL’s network, including The Pirate Bay and, curiously enough, TorrentFreak.

Within days the UK music industry will head back to the High Court with demands that the country’s leading Internet service providers should begin blocking three of the world’s largest torrent sites. Today, the owner of one of them describes the action as an attack on file-sharers and questions whether the process will be as straightforward as the one previously carried out against The Pirate Bay.

In common with many others around the world, the government of Norway see sites like The Pirate Bay as particularly responsible for the growth of file-sharing online but have had little success in stopping their activities. Following failed attempts by rightsholders to have the site censored by ISPs, this month the government will reveal its new proposals to tackle the problem. They are widely expected to include changes to copyright law to allow sites to be blocked, with The Pirate Bay at the top of the list.

A new study released by researchers from Boston’s Northeastern University shows that censoring “pirate” sites by blocking or seizing their domains is ineffective. The researchers looked at the availability of various pirated media on file-hosting sites and found that uploaders post more new content than copyright holders can take down. A better solution, according to the researchers, is to block the money streams that flow to these sites.