Wednesday, December 17th, 2014

Time	Event
9:19a	Swedish ISP Refuses to Block The Pirate Bay In many countries around the world The Pirate Bay has become a focal point for rightsholders seeking website blocking injunctions. Portrayed as the worst-of-the-worst, the site has been named in many ISP liability lawsuits. But while the site disappeared last week, pending legal action concerning it has not. The most recent lawsuit was filed in November by Universal Music, Sony Music, Warner Music, Nordisk Film and the Swedish Film Industry against Swedish service provider Bredbandsbolaget. In papers filed at the Stockholm District Court, the plaintiffs attempt to hold Bredbandsbolaget liable for the copyright-infringing actions of its pirating subscribers. The entertainment companies say that in order to put itself in the clear the ISP should block its customers from accessing The Pirate Bay and popular streaming portal Swefilmer. Just over a month later and Bredbandsbolaget (Broadband Company) has now submitted its response to the Court. The ISP completely opposes the entertainment companies’ demand to block content and services. “Bredbandsbolaget’s role is to provide its subscribers with access to the Internet, thereby contributing to the free flow of information and the ability for people to reach each other and communicate,” the company said in a statement. Bredbandsbolaget says that its job is to deliver a broadband service to its customers, not control or block specified content or services. Noting that the company will not monitor the communications of its subscribers, the ISP says that it’s a fundamental principle of the “Open Internet” that carriers can not be held responsible for the traffic carried on their networks. “Bredbandsbolaget does not block content or services based on individual organizations’ requests. There is no legal obligation for operators to block either The Pirate Bay or Swefilmer,” the company explains. “There are other legal means to stop infringement of rights, but there is no provision in Swedish law that forces an Internet provider to block its subscribers’ access to services and content.” While the motivation behind the lawsuit is to obtain a ruling that will ease blocking of additional sites in future, stopping Swedish users from accessing sharing services could prove more difficult than in other territories. The country has a long history of sharing files and services such as The Pirate Bay have become embedded in its Internet culture. It’s also worth noting that at least for now The Pirate Bay doesn’t even exist so blocking it would be futile. Whether the entertainment companies will proceed with their case as planned if TPB stays down remains to be seen, but it’s certainly possible they might seek to include the many copycat sites that have appeared following the site’s demise. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. (Comment on this)
10:51a	Icefilms Downtime Causes Concern, But Site Will Return Without doubt the past seven days have shaken the file-sharing world to its core. Last Tuesday the Internet’s most famous file-sharing site, invincible according to many accounts, fell following a raid by Swedish police. That kind of surprise can lead people to panic when other similar sites have downtime at the same time. For the past 24 hours concern has been growing over Icefilms, a movie and streaming portal with a strong online following. Sometime yesterday morning, Icefilms disappeared offline. Visitors to the site reported various issues, from no page loading to redirections to another domain. Most, however, were confronted with the image shown below. While much preferable to a law enforcement notice, the image itself has been causing concern among Icefilms users due to it being hosted on Amazon rather than the site’s own server. But despite the worries a source familiar with the situation informs TF that there is nothing to be concerned about. Icefilms currently has hosting issues to overcome, hence placing the image on another server. The site itself should be back to its full glory within days. Even when the Pirate Bay raid is disregarded, it’s easy to see why Icefilms users have been panicking. Firstly, the first few pages of Google are almost useless when it comes to getting information about the site. In fact, Icefilms itself is completely absent from Google search results. However, if one turns to Bing then results are restored to their former glory. In fact, Bing even provides a convenient Icefilms search engine as the first result. Only adding to the confusion is Icefilms’ inclusion in a recent blocking order. Last month the UK High Court ordered ISPs to block 32 domains following an application by the Motion Picture Association. In recent weeks the leading service providers responded by blocking access to Icefilms.info. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. (Comment on this)
6:39p	The Pirate Bay’s Facebook Page Is Shut Down Too More than a week has passed since The Pirate Bay’s servers were pulled offline, and now the same is happening to the site’s official Facebook page. With more than 470,000 likes TPB’s Facebook page had quite a reach, although the last status update dates back to last year. Since then the page was mostly used by ‘fans’ to share TPB related news stories, and most recently links to Pirate Bay alternatives. Those who try to access the page today are out of luck though, as Facebook informs them that “the page isn’t available” and that it “may have been removed.” It’s unclear what the reason behind the removal is. It could have been initiated by The Pirate Bay crew itself but it’s also possible that Facebook was asked to shut it down for alleged links to copyright infringing material. If The Pirate Bay crew deleted the page the motivation may have been to cover its tracks. Swedish authorities have confirmed that there’s a new criminal investigation ongoing into the site’s operators, which may have prompted some to cut their ties. That said, TPB’s official Twitter profile, which hasn’t been updated since December last year, remains online. The Pirate Bay crew have remained pretty much silent over the past few days. Earlier this week a message was relayed through “Mr 10100100000″ who suggested that no decision has yet been made on a potential return. “Will we reboot? We don’t know yet. But if and when we do, it’ll be with a bang,” Mr 10100100000 said. Meanwhile, most of the site’s users are flocking to the Pirate Bay copies that are floating around, or one of the other popular torrent sites. This mass migration caused trouble at ExtraTorrent yesterday, who were briefly offline due to a “sudden increase in user traffic.” At the same time, groups using the “Anonymous” moniker claimed to have hacked both the Swedish Government and the New Zealand police in a retaliatory move, while a better known “Anonymous” group distanced itself from The Pirate Bay. “We do not support the return of The Pirate Bay itself. We used to be the activist arm behind this website and what it stood for, but we feel like The Pirate Bay doesn’t represent our message anymore,” the latter group said. And so the storm continues. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. (Comment on this)

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