{"id":2289,"date":"2012-12-11T13:49:41","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T13:49:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=2289"},"modified":"2012-12-11T13:49:41","modified_gmt":"2012-12-11T13:49:41","slug":"bpi-takes-legal-action-over-pirate-partys-internet-proxy-for-the-pirate-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2012\/12\/bpi-takes-legal-action-over-pirate-partys-internet-proxy-for-the-pirate-bay.html","title":{"rendered":"BPI Take Legal Action Over Pirate Party’s Internet Proxy for the Pirate Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"

The British Phonographic Industry<\/a> (BPI), a trade body for the UK music industry, has ordered its solicitors to use legal pressure<\/strong> in order to force the minor political Pirate Party<\/a> to shut an internet proxy server that allows access to the banned Pirate Bay<\/strong> website.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The BPI’s CEO, Geoff Taylor<\/strong>, sent a softer email to The Pirate Party at the end of November that demanded they take down their Pirate Bay Proxy<\/strong> (here<\/a>), which effectively allows internet users to bypass ISP level filtering<\/strong> systems and continue to access The Pirate Bay via the party\u2019s own servers.<\/p>\n

Crucially the proxy cannot easily be blocked by an ISP without also restricting access to the Pirate Party itself, which would surely be an ill-advised approach for any ISP (i.e. banning the website of a political party). A court of law would also face challenges in balancing the democratic rights of a party against the variable nature of modern proxy servers and the rights of intellectual property owners.<\/p>\n

A Spokesman for the BPI said (BBC<\/a>):<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Despite our efforts to resolve the matter amicably, it is clear that the Pirate Party are determined to continue providing access to the illegal Pirate Bay site. Our solicitors will now be formally writing to the members of the Pirate Party’s national executive committee<\/em>.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Pirate Party Spokesperson said:<\/strong><\/p>\n

“We have now received a letter from the BPI telling us that we will be hearing from their solicitors in connection with the proxy.<\/em><\/p>\n

We believe in freedom of expression, the right to share information and ideas without interference. Censorship is never the right answer. Censorship, in any form, interferes with crucial freedoms and rarely delivers on its aims. Censorship’s only effect is to hide underlying problems or pretend they do not exist, rather than dealing with them directly. In the meantime, legitimate expression is curtailed.<\/em><\/p>\n

If we do end up in court, it will give us an opportunity to present the argument that site blocking is not the answer and that blocking intermediaries is indefensible. If we continue down this route we will see irreparable harm done to search engines, service providers and many others<\/em>.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The original blocking injunction<\/strong> required ISPs to censor access to \u201cwww.thepirate***.se its domain and sub-domains and any other IP<\/a> address or url whose sole or predominant purpose is to enable or facilitate access to The Pirate Bay website<\/em>\u201c. The Pirate Party might have avoided at least some the hassle had it offered a more general proxy and not specifically promoted it for use as a workaround for the TBP block.<\/p>\n

In any case the Pirate Party appears keen to challenge the BPI and has setup a Help page for donations<\/a>, which is supported by a video message from the party’s leader Loz Kaye<\/strong>. It will be interesting to see how much support they receive from the “freeloader<\/em>” crowd, as some rights holders like to say.<\/p>\n