Eircom to Block Pirate Bay starting Sept 1st
In what I consider a major act of censorship, one of Ireland's top ISPs, Eircom (surprise!), will block all (their loyal, paying) customers from accessing The Pirate Bay website, one of the most popular bit torrent sites ever.
The Pirate Bay crew are no strangers to legal battles. They were recently forced to move ISPs after their previous Swedish ISP dropped them due to legal threats.
The big four music labels EMI, Warner, Sony and Universal (in Ireland represented by the IRMA) are now putting pressure on UPC to block The Pirate Bay, who have refused to date.
“UPC regrets this decision by the rightsholders. We have throughout all correspondence indicated that we are very supportive of the position that authors and performers are entitled to be remunerated for their artistic efforts. As has been communicated in the past, we take a strong stance on the infringement of copyright - indeed our very own business model depends on the protection of such material.
“Notwithstanding this however, as a legitimate business we are required to operate within the confines of the law. We believe that there is no basis in Irish law for this request.
“This means we cannot and will not meet demands from private parties that we restrict access to certain content of the internet. To agree to such a move would be to change the nature of an ISP from a communications provider to being a gatekeeper that censors the material its users can access.
“We believe that censorship such as this should not be agreed upon by private parties but that it is a matter for the courts and other state bodies. Moreover, if UPC were to agree to such a request, this would open the floodgate from other third parties - equally convinced of the legitimacy of their position- that we block access to other material.”
In the original High Court hearing in January, evidence was heard that an Eircom official told colleagues they should
think of music piracy as “sharing” and “helping the health and good living of rich cocaine-sniffing rock stars by leaving them with less free money to spend on sex and drugs”.
Eircom to block internet access to Pirate Bay as other firms refuse
