Is The Pirate Bay now blocked on Plusnet?

Is The Pirate Bay now blocked on Plusnet?

If it is, the block is new, starting today.

Thanks for any replies.

Try http://uberproxy.net/thepiratebay.sx

I can't reach it either, so it might well be. To be honest I was surprised Plusnet still allowed access as a fairly high profile ISP. Not that any blocks they put in place will make a blind bit of difference.

www.thepiratebay.sx works without issue on talktalk although the www.piratebay.se is blocked lol

EDIT it seems the .se address now simply redirects to the sx one so none are blocked any longer but they definately were

Edited by deleted (Fri 14-Jun-13 20:05:47)

Are you sure? I am pretty sure TPB is blocked on TalkTalk.

trust me i used to have to use the pirateparty address or use a proxy but now i can connect without issue

I tried a tracert and it goes via bt.net but I don't know if that is of any relevance

Web page opens OK, not blocked on my connection, using <http://thepiratebay.sx/>

With Tracert and Ping, both time out.

Yep, sure looks like PN has blocked *some* of TPB url's.

arrr, there be others urls ye pirate could use.. arrr !!!

The Pirate Bay website http://thepiratebay.sx/ is blocked to comply with high court ruling as it operates unlawfully. This is a legal obligation that we must comply with. The Court has found that the site and its users infringe copyright material in the UK.

http://ee.co.uk/site-blocked/?ip=&uid=&url=thepirate...

Edited by deleted (Sat 15-Jun-13 22:32:33)

EE was one one the six named in the court order, Plusnet wasn't named.

Was BT Group named as that would cover plusnet as well as BT retail.

That is interesting - this is the Court Judgement
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cas...
which states that the defendants are

BRITISH SKY BROADCASTING LIMITED
BRITISH TELECOMMUNICATIONS PLC
EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE LIMITED
TALKTALK TELECOM GROUP PLC
TELEF�NICA UK LIMITED
VIRGIN MEDIA LIMITED

So that would appear that it includes Plusnet
Post edited again to take it back to the original wording I should have checked

Edited by deleted (Sat 15-Jun-13 15:03:48)

Doesn't BT Group PLC own Plusnet (and also BT PLC)?

Edit: so not included in court order.

AFAIK BT Group would had to be named to include PN.

Edited by deleted (Sat 15-Jun-13 13:45:31)

Quite right - I have edited the post
Edited it back again - I should have checked - as the parent company is indeed British Telecommunications plc.

Edited by deleted (Sat 15-Jun-13 15:06:11)

In reply to a post by Oldjim:

Quite right

Now there's a first for me

That's interesting - I had seen it written before that Plusnet was a subsidiary of BT Retail but a quick dig around on the Internet does suggest that it is owned by BT Group plc and not British Telecommunications plc - does anyone have a link that confirms the corporate structure?

Edit: this TBB news item says that BT Retail acquired Plusnet so how does that work?

Further edit: looks like RobertoS has confirmed my suspicions.

Edited by kasg (Sat 15-Jun-13 14:58:39)

Uh uh!!!

The parent company of PlusNet is British Telecommunications PLC.
The parent company of BT Telecommunications PLC is BT Group Investments Limited. (Note this is a Private Limited Company not a PLC).
The parent company of BT Group Investments Limited is BT Group PLC.

Uh uh!!! Indeed

https://www.duedil.com/company/03279013/plusnet-plc

Ah thanks, duedil.com, I'd forgotten about that, I even have an account there!

In reply to a post by E7er:

http://ee.co.uk/site-blocked/?ip=2.x.y.z&uid=&url=th...

You have revealed your public IP there. So much for taking all that trouble trying to disguise your LAN IPs.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

In reply to a post by E7er:

http://ee.co.uk/site-blocked/?ip=2.x.y.z&uid=&url=th...

You have revealed your public IP there. So much for taking all that trouble trying to disguise your LAN IPs.

XRaySpeX thanks! I didn�t notice I gave my dynamic public IP address in that web address, it's now removed.

http://ee.co.uk/site-blocked/?ip=0.00.000.00&uid=&ur...

You now need to remove it from your quote of him quoting you, and him to remove it from the quote !

Way ahead of you! Whose IP is 2.x.y.z anyway?

Post deleted by Sadoldman

In reply to a post by roughbeast:

Blocking these sites is futile. Mirror sites spring up even faster. Ways around are devised. Some day the entertainment industry is going to have to make its income through live shows, enhanced cinema experience and advertising rather than sales of recorded material.

That would certainly solve the download problem after a while, as there wouldn't be anything new to download.

Excellent idea.

Edited by RobertoS (Sun 16-Jun-13 14:24:48)

Not appropriate to promote sites via links to get around blocks that some ISP have been legally bound to enforce.

This is really interesting, because I was considering re-joining PlusNet as I was told by one of their guys that they don't block any p2p sites..

As it stands piratebay is blocked with o2, and I don't like this type of internet cenorship frankly as it's paving the way for more censorship. So I think I will be looking at a smaller local ISP that I've been eyeing as I know they don't have any court orders against them.

Edited by LeJimster (Sun 16-Jun-13 20:24:23)

From the appearance of this thread is it possible he was correct at the time?

As for your own position on this, the least said the better, other than I don't like it.

Why not just sign up to a VPN service and hey presto zero censorship and no sites blocked, as well as no identity tracking.

I don't need to. I don't download using P2P

Or did you mean to reply to someone else? I've deleted the nuisance email your reply to me caused . (The tbb system can be set to email relies to your posts).

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by roughbeast:

Blocking these sites is futile. Mirror sites spring up even faster. Ways around are devised. Some day the entertainment industry is going to have to make its income through live shows, enhanced cinema experience and advertising rather than sales of recorded material.

That would certainly solve the download problem after a while, as there wouldn't be anything new to download.

Excellent idea.

That is not how it works. Recorded material is an essential element of getting artists in the public eye. Indeed many musicians get their first hearing nationally via free or low cost downloads. Before the internet, radio plays have, for decades, been the only way to get known beyond your own locality. Once known, live shows confirm the artist's worth. Live shows and merchandise then become the main money-makers.

In reply to a post by Sadoldman:

Not appropriate to promote sites via links to get around blocks that some ISP have been legally bound to enforce.

As for having my reference to a link that gets people around blocks getting deleted, grrr That particular get around link is old hat anyway. Are we not all mature enough to decide whether we want to use such a link or not? I put it in as an illustration of how pointless blocking is. How dare you suggest I was promoting it!. Others suggested tunnelling via VPN, but have not been censored.

In reply to a post by Sadoldman:

Not appropriate to promote sites via links to get around blocks that some ISP have been legally bound to enforce.

I think it is worth noting though that Plusnet are not legally bound to enforce any block, they just seem to have done it of their own backs.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I don't need to. I don't download using P2P

Or did you mean to reply to someone else? I've deleted the nuisance email your reply to me caused . (The tbb system can be set to email relies to your posts).

Oops. Meant as a general reply.

Bit rusty on this forum.

In reply to a post by Oldjim:

That is interesting - this is the Court Judgement
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cas...

That seems to be only the preliminary hearing Jim.

Conclusion

84.For the reasons set out above, I conclude that both users and the operators of TPB infringe the copyrights of the Claimants (and those they represent) in the UK.

I can't find a UK follow-up or UK Court Order/Injunction at the moment - possibly there hasn't been one yet, awaiting the European Court of Human Rights decision which occurred on 13 March this year, which found against TPB owners. Then the move first to Greenland and then to Iceland.

http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2012/may/high-cou... states on 1st May

Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media have been ordered to deploy measures that prevent their customers' visiting The Pirate Bay site. The UK's biggest ISP � BT � has been granted more time to "consider their position", according to a music industry body that sought the blocking action.

This supersedes the preliminary hearing in front of Mr Justice Arnold http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2012/february/hig... reported 20th Feb
However, like yourself I can't find a record of the actual order
However this gives a date for it http://www.thecmuwebsite.com/article/five-uk-isps-fo...

Tuesday 1 May 2012, 11:40 | By CMU Editorial
Five UK ISPs forced to block access to The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay

The High Court in London yesterday issued orders requiring five internet service providers to block their customers from accessing the always controversial file-sharing search service The Pirate Bay. The court orders were possible thanks to the precedent set in last year�s Newzbin case, and followed a court ruling earlier this year that confirmed that, under English copyright law, The Pirate Bay is itself liable for the copyright infringement it enables its users to actually commit.

Found it
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Ch/2012/1152.html

As noted above, the detailed terms of the orders have been agreed by the Defendants. It is therefore not necessary for me to set out or analyse them in this judgment. One point is nevertheless worthy of mention. Mr Walsh's report (as to which, see the First Judgment at [19]) drew attention to one particular method by which BT's Cleanfeed system (as to which, see 20C Fox v BT at [70]-[73]), the use of which was required by the order I made in 20C Fox v BT, could be circumvented (as to which, see 20C Fox v BT at [192]-[198]). As Mr Walsh explained, it is straightforward to prevent that method of circumvention by using IP address blocking. IP address blocking is generally only appropriate where the relevant website's IP address is not shared with anyone else. If it is shared, the result is likely to be overblocking (see 20C Fox v BT (No 2) at [6]). In the present case, however, TPB's IP address is not shared. Thus IP address blocking is appropriate. Accordingly, the Defendants have agreed to orders which require IP address blocking, although the specific technical means to be employed varies from Defendant to Defendant.

Edited by deleted (Mon 17-Jun-13 13:03:58)

In reply to a post by roughbeast:

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by roughbeast:

Some day the entertainment industry is going to have to make its income through live shows, enhanced cinema experience and advertising rather than sales of recorded material.

That would certainly solve the download problem after a while, as there wouldn't be anything new to download.

Excellent idea.

That is not how it works. Recorded material is an essential element of getting artists in the public eye. Indeed many musicians get their first hearing nationally via free or low cost downloads. Before the internet, radio plays have, for decades, been the only way to get known beyond your own locality. Once known, live shows confirm the artist's worth. Live shows and merchandise then become the main money-makers.

There's a word in my sig - litotes. Look it up .

As for artistes that make their work available free of copyright on the internet, I agree that is a valid method of self-promotion. It is a completely different thing from others who rely on copyright protection for their income. Similarly I think you will find that plays on live radio are still subject to copyright, as are many iPlayer replays. (Copyright being one of the reasons iPlayer replays are time-limited). Not everything on the Beeb gets to iPlayer - again for copyright reasons.

As for live shows and merchandise becoming the main money-makers - maybe for a very select few right at the top. Not for the vast majority. As in football.

I agree, it is the artists choice as to how they make their works available (and if the artist chooses to hand that to a publisher/record label then that is still their choice as presumably they made some deal to do that).

So, if an artist decides to only release their music as a tape and only sells it through one store then they have the right to do that - even if it means they won't make any money. That doesn't mean that it is then right for someone to rip that and make it publicly available.

If an artist lets people download for free from a website then again that is their choice. And just because it is free still does not mean that anyone else has a right to download that and distribute it by other means - it may be they have advertising on their site which is getting them the income and by making it available elsewhere could deptive the artist of income.

In the end the artist should ultimately be free to choose how their music is made available. If they want it on piratebay (or elsewhere) then presumably they would release it via that route or put on a notice that says "feel free to rip and make available wherever you like".

In the end artists need to be paid or they won't be able to do the job anymore. And if they are really good / popular then why shouldn't they make millions (most of them end up broke in the end anyway!).

Interesting case in the last couple of weeks over somebody recording a concert to put on YouTube

http://www.classicfm.com/music-news/latest-news/krys...

Which has opened a very big debate about the merits etc of YouTube.

Hmm, a little unfair on other people in the audience but I can understand it.

Have you ever watched Dara O'Brien doing stand up? One of the ones that was shown on TV was hilarious - there was a kid about 15 in the front row recording it on his phone. Data started to chat with him and pointed out that it was illegal to do so and of course the kid could watch it on TV later as it was being professionally filmed. At least 2 or 3 more times Dara spoke to this kid - and the kid on every occasion was still filming it... Even when told he wasn't allowed to by a comedian that is perfectly willing to single people out the kid carried on. That is pretty brazen.

Please could a Plusnet representative respond to this thread to confirm if The Pirate Bay has actually been blocked, and if so why - is there a court order?

Surely if you want a official PN answer you should be asking on PN's own forums or tickets?

he has http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1157... although the thread may not be in the most obvious place

Edited by deleted (Mon 17-Jun-13 22:52:27)

the original intention of copyright was to protect earnings during the period the creative product is been sold for profit.

originally copyright lasted a much shorter time than it does now.

When I see someone enforcing copyright just for the purpose of controlling distribution but not to protect a commercial product thats available I consider that abusive.

sadly the law is too lopsided and away from the original purpose of copyright.

The #1 reason for copyright infringement remains lack of availability.

How come something that is available to buy is not available, so in your opinion making copyright infringement justifiable and ignoring of the law legitimate?

And even if it isn't available to buy now it doesn't mean it won't be in 6 months - but if everyone has copies by then then who is going to buy it?

If something is never going to be available then it could be a different matter. But how do you confirm something will never have another run? The copyright could be bought by someone else and they might then to leverage the value of it by re-releasing.

I have so say I personally don't have a big issue with copyright law. If someone doesn't want to sell me something then they lose the profit and I will find something else to fill my time - there is nothing that I am so desperate to see that I have to resort to downloading it from the PB.

You could be right. If PN is now using BT's network for some of it's internet peering the blocks could be as a result of that and not anything deliberate that PN have done.

We're currently looking into this as it appears to be blocked by our peering provider. As soon as we have an update we'll reply back.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

The #1 reason for copyright infringement remains lack of availability.

I would say the #1 reason for copyright infringement is the ability to get something for nothing.

I didnt say that.

I said there is people enforcing copyright for no reason other than to just be awkrawd, preventing content from been shared that isnt sold simply because they can.

When copyright was introduced originally content became free to share after a much shorter period of time.

Like many laws the current copyright laws probably got how they are after lobbying etc. not all laws are set with good intentions.

Bear in mind copyright could be extended. It wasnt a set in stone expiry, so if eg the content creator was still actively selling it they could get the copyright extended. But over time copyright got changed to how it is today. copyright hoders are well known for their extensive lobbying, and that should be apparent to you in whats happening with modern internet legislation with the over evasive legislation just to help copyright holders.

The law will likely be tested after the xbox one is launched because microsoft plan to breach current EU law by forbidding the resale of certian games people purchase. This is one where we might see the law get further changed following more lobbying.

Edited by Chrysalis (Tue 18-Jun-13 21:01:01)

I think you will find MS sell a non-transferable licence, not a product.

Very much how PC games that run on the steam platform works,they are activated to 1 account and are not transferable.

I switched to TorBrowser when Madasafish blocked TPB.

I have no issues with it now.

steam is also in breach, but I think noone cares too much as steam games are so cheap.

http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/...

the only way I can see them been legal is if they sell it as a rented product. not a purchase. so eg. we rent xbox one games. not buy them.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 19-Jun-13 12:28:59)

As hitachi says however, towards the end of that judgement we have, (bold and italics copied from the judgement):-

Furthermore, the Court states that an original acquirer of a tangible or intangible copy of a computer program for which the copyright holder�s right of distribution is exhausted must make the copy downloaded onto his own computer unusable at the time of resale. If he continued to use it, he would infringe the copyright holder�s exclusive right of reproduction of his computer program. In contrast to the exclusive right of distribution, the exclusive right of reproduction is not exhausted by the first sale.

In reply to a post by hitachi:

Very much how PC games that run on the steam platform works,they are activated to 1 account and are not transferable.

There has been code spotted in the latest steam beta client that may allow for game sharing.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-06-19-steam-m...

And as stated in the article given how slow valve take sometimes this looks like something they have been looking at for some time.

In reply to a post by OnFire:

In reply to a post by Sadoldman:

Not appropriate to promote sites via links to get around blocks that some ISP have been legally bound to enforce.

I think it is worth noting though that Plusnet are not legally bound to enforce any block, they just seem to have done it of their own backs.

We also don't want to end up having court orders against us for promoting workarounds. We're a broadband information website so we want to spend our resources on tackling broadband issues. We're very much in favour of openness and it's perfectly ok to discuss the merits/futility of blocking but we want to be a place for discussion of the issue, not a campaign for either side.

seb

thats irrelevant to what I said, which is that if a license to use software is sold to someone, the seller cannot legally forbid it to be resold. Your bit in bold just means if the person selling the license doesnt delete the content afterwards he is infringing copyright, or rather if he uses it after its sold.

I looked into steam a bit more and its a bit of a grey area, as it seems what steam do is actually just keep the license ownership to themselves and steam customers are 'subscribers'. essentially the licences are been leased out. I dont think microsoft can push that one tho when they are going to be trying to restrict resale of physical products sold in shops.

I say steam is a grey area because when making payments, the payment screen makes it clear its a purchase not a lease. so steam has inconsistent information regarding leasing vs purchase.

And also with steam or valve , the end user can purchase a steam game for amazon or other retailer, and get the physical disk ,But suprisingly the disk doesnt have the game files written to it, the end user has to have a steam account and has to input the activation code using the steam client ,the game content is then downloaded from steams servers Borderlands 2 being one example , Steam also use geographic blocks, basically to regulate the price of games,(keep them artificially high)

this wont be tested with microsoft as they have done a complete U turn now too much bad publicity for them.

it wasnt always this way. i have a retail copy of cod modern warfare 2 that had all the game files on the 2 discs the only thing that used to be downloaded was the actual .exe and/or any updates now you get a disk with the steam program on and a key on a sticker

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

The #1 reason for copyright infringement remains lack of availability.

I thought it was greedy freeloaders. You learn something every day it seems.

It's also the reason for theft of upmarket cars. They really should at least quadruple their production.

I dont think right holders loose nearly as much as they reckon they do!

Certainly Cinema Film and DVD sales support this. I like music, spend all the money you have on sound card etc, the digital downloads dont stand up too Vinyl or Cd. I have a tape deck and accouterments that sounds better than anything I tunes or Pirate bay could offer me.

Also I was chatting to my independent local video retailer just after E3, we were chatting about Xbox and the now dead DRM etc, he has customers who are are open about their video game piracy mainly down to fact they require 3 to 4 Xboxs from him year to continue the absurd pattern of torrent a couple of games, console ban and new console needed.

No doubt, a reply by someone will be, so stealing is fine. Nope stealing is not, though neither is advertising the method by the way of court orders. Because all you need is the terminology and search engine and its back to business with a load more spotty leechers giving two fingers Agincourt style to the corporate world.

All cars are dangerous weapons, not in sense of Environment but its easier to get away with.... Than actually using a weapon of death or your bare hands.

what I posted wasnt made up in my mind, there has been analysis of torrent traffic in relation to release of content in countries of the torrent traffic.

eg. when content is released early in a country torrent traffic is more than 50% down.

those in the content industry and those stuck in the stone age's think region locking, staggered release dates (as well as inflated prices) have no affect on media sharing, they always with their heads stuck in the sand think its people just not wanting to pay anything.

another interesting statistic regarding the future of tv is that the majority of young people expect to watch what they want on demand, scheduled tv in 20-30 years time when the older generation is passing away is doomed to failure. Thats another thing related to 'availability' as although the likes of iplayer exist, its still an extremely limited service eg. match of the day can only be watched live, live sports events often can only be watched live or a scheduled rerun,of the shows that can be watched on demand they expire very quickly on iplayer etc. so become 'unavailable'.

I am amazed people think this has no affect on infringement.

lets take netflix as an example.

its priced reasonably well for on demand experience of movies, however some problems are apparent.

1 - they region lock movies so eg. a usa netflix customer has a much larger choice than a uk netflix customer.
2 - movies get pulled with pretty much no notice because the copyright owner has found a more profitable way to sell the movie. eg. movies will get pulled when a premium cable tv channel is due to schedule it as the cable channel has paid for exclusivity.
3 - movies have also been pulled because the original contracts between netflix and movie studios couldnt be renewed, the movie studios wanted netflix to move to a pay per view model or at least pay a much larger fee for the rights, netflix rightly so told them to take a hike but this has led to a shrunk library.
4 - movies have been pulled because again the $$ signs in the movie studios they have decided that a segmented market makes them more money so eg. we have some movies only available on amazon's services, some only on netflix, some only on lovefilm, many new movies only available on sky's service. we have some mvoie studios starting their own subscription service such as starz, they pulled all their content of netflix. the ultimate result is a mess for the consumer, if a consumer can watch every movie ever made on next flix for say a flat fee of £7 a month, it would nail 90% of piracy dead on movies. Its a whole different ball game when the consumer has to sub to 5+ services and still have to use pay per view to watch some movies on top of that.

What we have is a scenario where the consumers are rejecting a product, in most markets this would lead to product/pricing changes eg. earlier in this thread I mentioned microsoft in the console market backtracked, they were wanting to do the following on their next console.

1 - block/restrict reselling of games.
2 - region lock games
3 - require internet authentication every 24 hours otherwise no games are playable.
4 - no lending games to friends unless subscribed to a family/freinds plan.

However the market rejected it and they were forced to back down. But with the movie publishers, they dont back down, they just get the law changed instead, they lobby and they keep lobbying hard trying to protect a product that the free market is rejecting. The amount of civil rights lost just to protect copyright is getting very silly.

Edited by Chrysalis (Fri 21-Jun-13 03:48:54)

Don't have an issue with people "rejecting the product" but that is not what they are doing. They are rejecting the delivery/payment method of the product so they can get it free or earlier than otherwise possible.

People are still consuming the product but because they don't like the way the movie industry is providing it they do it via P2P. If they are truly rejecting the product then it should be on the basis that they don't consume it at all.

This is a bit like someone going on hunger strike but continuing to eat any food they can get for free.

If someone rejects the product then they should get a spine and reject it fully not make excuses for downloading material that they have no rights to.

I think it all boils down to cost - well from the people I've spoken to it does.

If the industry wasn't so greedy i.e charging upwards of £50 for some games and £30 for some movies, then I believe you'd see a hell of a drop in Piracy.

I know I'd happily pay £20-25 per game and £10-£15 for a DVD/Blu Ray.

I know I'd happily pay £20-25 per game and £10-£15 for a DVD/Blu Ray.

And for the most part you can get them for those prices. Just not as soon as they are released. If that is what you are willing to pay then presumably you can wait until the costs come down.

Personally I don't buy DVDs these days. I pay for Sky Movies and just wait till they come on there. I'm fine with waiting 12 months or more to see a film - I have enough to do that I don't feel I have to see everything the moment it comes available.

But the cost to me doesn't justify downloading them from dubious sources. If I was that desperate then I would pay - if I don't agree with the price then it's their loss.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

4 - movies have been pulled because again the $$ signs in the movie studios they have decided that a segmented market makes them more money so eg. we have some movies only available on amazon's services, some only on netflix, some only on lovefilm, many new movies only available on sky's service. we have some mvoie studios starting their own subscription service such as starz, they pulled all their content of netflix. the ultimate result is a mess for the consumer, if a consumer can watch every movie ever made on next flix for say a flat fee of £7 a month, it would nail 90% of piracy dead on movies. Its a whole different ball game when the consumer has to sub to 5+ services and still have to use pay per view to watch some movies on top of that.

A lot of the full post makes sense to me, but the bit I quote here seems to suggest Netflix should have a monopoly of the online market. Which would of course very quickly become as bad as any other monopoly.

If you didn't mean that, then how do you suggest the market should be split, so as to make all products available from all current and startup competition without hugely multiplying the charge?

How realistic is £7 for such a service anyway? I haven't any idea, but it sounds rather low.

Seen on Usenet (plusnet.service.customer-feedback):

On 16/06/2013 01:42, Tom wrote:
> Has Plusnet now been ordered to block the Pirate Bay? If so, was it by
> BT or the High Court?

No we haven't.

I've only just got back after a fortnight out of the office but I'm under the impression that there's been an upstream routing change that's sending Plusnet Pirate Bay traffic over a different peering link.

This has resulted in the access to the site being restricted. It's something we're looking into. In the meantime you can use a proxy as Harold has pointed out.

--
|Bob Pullen
|Support

Well netflix did initially have a monoply at one point and the prices were reasonable.

I would be ok with competing service but my belief if is such a service should have every movie not just 'some' , I have noticed eg. on netflix about 70-80% of the movies I Search for are not on there, thats a big %. I am talking mainstream movies as well and not brand new ones released in 2012+. also this is on the .us netflix, obviously the situation is worse in the uk.

It sounds low, but it has to be offset to increased takeup of such services. £9.99 may be reasonable, but I think anything over £9.99 would put people off.

What I dont like is pay per view models, eg. £3 you watch once, or you can watch for 48 hours. I think scheduled services such as sky movies are effectively obselete but they keep their customers due to the exclusivity sky get, sky pay big bucks to keep their movies away from services like netflix. Now tv is owned by sky £15 a month or £3.50 pay per view. Expensive and only viable as they have exclusivity to many box office movies. In my opinion not good for the consumer and is not low enough to deter piracy. Then we have sky daily passes at £9.99 a pop, completely ridicolous and shows how the entertainment sector over value their products.

The £7 figure i got from what I pay netflix. Lovefilm is poor compared to netflix (only using it currently to get free xbox live points), its very poor encoding quality like a pirated xvid with no subtitles, whilst netflix is about 3-4x the streaming bandwidth and it shows on the quality.

In reply to a post by seb:

In reply to a post by OnFire:

In reply to a post by Sadoldman:

Not appropriate to promote sites via links to get around blocks that some ISP have been legally bound to enforce.

I think it is worth noting though that Plusnet are not legally bound to enforce any block, they just seem to have done it of their own backs.

We also don't want to end up having court orders against us for promoting workarounds. We're a broadband information website so we want to spend our resources on tackling broadband issues. We're very much in favour of openness and it's perfectly ok to discuss the merits/futility of blocking but we want to be a place for discussion of the issue, not a campaign for either side.

seb

Perhaps you should censor all references to VPN, proxies and other block get arounds then.

I started waching "The Vikings" last night on my PS3 on Lovefilm and found the picture quality to be superb.

Even my wife was impressed saying that it was a good quality picture.

As for pricing on PPV the distributers of the content have the ultimate say on how much sky et al on a performance and even if Sky wanted to drop it they can't.

The whole problem lies at the feet of the people who control the rights and these are invariably US companies who feel like they can do what they like.

Even the Hobbit was held up for almost a decade as New Line refused to pay Peter Jackson $180 million in money they owed him, He sued them and won and they instantly went into administration.

Class acts these companies are.

I have chatted to several hollywood producers etc and they all say the same thing, be thankful you get any TV/movies as the entire industry seems hell bent on self destruction. If anything is any good it is seen as a bonus.

its possible theri pc web app is just poor then.

Not sure why pc gets worser treatment than consoles.

But regardless, the means I chose to watch the content its poor quality, some was even 4:3 even tho it was 16:9 content.

I know the problems lie with the people who control the rights. They just wont move away from that model.

I know the problems lie with the people who control the rights. They just wont move away from that model.

Isn't that their right?

Have you ever considered giving any and all passers-by full access to your property? After all, in one way or another, you have stolen that property from the common weal, either by inheritance or acquisition.

But the point that chryslis is possibly making is that the Hollywood rights holder in the main are sticking to very old mid twentieth century rights models where exclusitivity at a premium is the only thing they will consider.

What if they decided to dip their toe into the water and decide to have non-exclusive rights over a series of certain titles and see if they can get more money for that model.

I only subscribe to lovefilm and have only used the disc rental as there is nothing really I want to watch online and I have only used the online this week to watch "the vikings" which is another exclusive.

I will not subscribe to more platforms and so content providers are not getting more money from me and if I am not consuming their content then they are losing money in many ways as I am unlikely to recommend it. unlikely to watch more of their content in the cinema etc etc etc. It all adds up in many ways,

MS has tried to go to an online platform but their approach to their customers was that of contempt and seeing the consumer as a walking wallet with unlimited money.

And not everything is rosy in Hollywood MGM has gone under and I can see some others heading to the wall currently only 40% of movies make any money at all. They will try and claim piracy did this to them but it their hidebound attitude and refusal to change when everything is changing around them will be their downfall.

In reply to a post by undecidedadrian:

What if they decided to dip their toe into the water and decide to have non-exclusive rights over a series of certain titles and see if they can get more money for that model.

It's certainly something they could consider.

The real question though is whether it's justifiable to pirate their content if they don't.

Baen Books have been at the forefront of the online content debate for years and there is a very interesting piece from Eric Flint about it here

http://baen.com/library/intro.asp

What is interesting is that even that piece was written 13 years ago it still holds true today and Baen's model has increased their sales both electronically as well as physical and yet other publishing houses like Harper Collins just cannot get around their heads that their model can and indeed has worked for almost 15 years.

A copy of the text is below.


Baen Books is now making available � for free � a number of its titles in electronic format. We're calling it the Baen Free Library. Anyone who wishes can read these titles online � no conditions, no strings attached. (Later we may ask for an extremely simple, name & email only, registration. ) Or, if you prefer, you can download the books in one of several formats. Again, with no conditions or strings attached. (URLs to sites which offer the readers for these format are also listed. )

Why are we doing this? Well, for two reasons.

The first is what you might call a "matter of principle." This all started as a byproduct of an online "virtual brawl" I got into with a number of people, some of them professional SF authors, over the issue of online piracy of copyrighted works and what to do about it.

There was a school of thought, which seemed to be picking up steam, that the way to handle the problem was with handcuffs and brass knucks. Enforcement! Regulation! New regulations! Tighter regulations! All out for the campaign against piracy! No quarter! Build more prisons! Harsher sentences!

Alles in ordnung!

I, ah, disagreed. Rather vociferously and belligerently, in fact. And I can be a vociferous and belligerent fellow. My own opinion, summarized briefly, is as follows:

1. Online piracy � while it is definitely illegal and immoral � is, as a practical problem, nothing more than (at most) a nuisance. We're talking brats stealing chewing gum, here, not the Barbary Pirates.

2. Losses any author suffers from piracy are almost certainly offset by the additional publicity which, in practice, any kind of free copies of a book usually engender. Whatever the moral difference, which certainly exists, the practical effect of online piracy is no different from that of any existing method by which readers may obtain books for free or at reduced cost: public libraries, friends borrowing and loaning each other books, used book stores, promotional copies, etc.

3. Any cure which relies on tighter regulation of the market � especially the kind of extreme measures being advocated by some people � is far worse than the disease. As a widespread phenomenon rather than a nuisance, piracy occurs when artificial restrictions in the market jack up prices beyond what people think are reasonable. The "regulation-enforcement-more regulation" strategy is a bottomless pit which continually recreates (on a larger scale) the problem it supposedly solves. And that commercial effect is often compounded by the more general damage done to social and political freedom.

In the course of this debate, I mentioned it to my publisher Jim Baen. He more or less virtually snorted and expressed the opinion that if one of his authors � how about you, Eric? � were willing to put up a book for free online that the resulting publicity would more than offset any losses the author might suffer.

The minute he made the proposal, I realized he was right. After all, Dave Weber's On Basilisk Station has been available for free as a "loss leader" for Baen's for-pay experiment "Webscriptions" for months now. And � hey, whaddaya know? � over that time it's become Baen's most popular backlist title in paper!

And so I volunteered my first novel, Mother of Demons, to prove the case. And the next day Mother of Demons went up online, offered to the public for free.

Sure enough, within a day, I received at least half a dozen messages (some posted in public forums, others by private email) from people who told me that, based on hearing about the episode and checking out Mother of Demons, they either had or intended to buy the book. In one or two cases, this was a "gesture of solidarity. "But in most instances, it was because people preferred to read something they liked in a print version and weren't worried about the small cost � once they saw, through sampling it online, that it was a novel they enjoyed. (Mother of Demons is a $5.99 paperback, available in most bookstores. Yes, that a plug. )

Then, after thinking the whole issue through a bit more, I realized that by posting Mother of Demons I was just making a gesture. Gestures are fine, but policies are better.

So, the next day, I discussed the matter with Jim again and it turned out he felt exactly the same way. So I proposed turning the Mother of Demons tour-de-force into an ongoing project. Immediately, David Drake was brought into the discussion and the three of us refined the idea and modified it here and there. And then Dave Weber heard about it, and Dave Freer, and. . . voila.

The Baen Free Library was born.

This will be a place where any author can, at their own personal discretion, put up online for free any book published by Baen that they so desire. There is absolutely no "pressure" involved. The choice is entirely up to the authors, and that is true on all levels:

� participate, or not, as they choose;

� put up whatever book they choose;

� for as long as they choose.

The only "restrictions" we'll be placing is simply that we will encourage authors to put up the first novel or novels in an ongoing popular series, where possible. And we will ask authors who are interested not to volunteer more than, at most, five or six novels or collections at any one time.

The reason for the first provision is obvious � to generate more public interest in an ongoing series. I'll have more to say about that in a moment. The reason for the second provision is that one of the things we hope the Baen Free Library will do is make it easier for a broader audience to become familiar with less well known authors. Burying the one or two novels which a new or midlist author might have under a mountain of Big Name backlist titles would work against that. And there's no reason to do so, anyway, because anyone can get a pretty good idea of whether they like a given author after reading a few of his or her books.

Jim has asked me to co-ordinate the project and I have agreed. After a humorous exchange on my appropriate title � I tried to hold out for. . . never mind � we settled on "Eric Flint, First Librarian. "That will allow me to give the periodic "newsletter and remarks" which I will toss into the hopper the splendid title of "Prime Palaver," a pun which is just too good to pass up. (I'd apologize to the ghost of Isaac Asimov, except I think he'd get a chuckle out of it. )

Earlier, I mentioned "two reasons" we were doing this, and stated that the first was what you might call a demonstration of principle. What's the second?

Common sense, applied to the practical reality of commercial publishing. Or, if you prefer, the care and feeding of authors and publishers. Or, if you insist on a single word, profit.

I will make no bones about it (and Jim, were he writing this, would be gleefully sucking out the marrow). We expect this Baen Free Library to make us money by selling books.

How? As I said above, for the same reason that any kind of book distribution which provides free copies to people has always, throughout the history of publishing, eventually rebounded to the benefit of the author.

Take, for instance, the phenomenon of people lending books to their friends � a phenomenon which absolutely dwarfs, by several orders of magnitude, online piracy of copyrighted books.

What's happened here? Has the author "lost a sale?"

Well. . . yeah, in the short run � assuming, of course, that said person would have bought the book if he couldn't borrow it. Sure. Instead of buying a copy of the author's book, the Wretched Scoundrel Borrower (with the Lender as his Accomplice) has "cheated" the author. Read his work for free! Without paying for it!

The same thing happens when someone checks a book out of a public library � a "transaction" which, again, dwarfs by several orders of magnitude all forms of online piracy. The author only collects royalties once, when the library purchases a copy. Thereafter. . .

Robbed again! And again, and again!

Yet. . . yet. . .

I don't know any author, other than a few who are � to speak bluntly � cretins, who hears about people lending his or her books to their friends, or checking them out of a library, with anything other than pleasure. Because they understand full well that, in the long run, what maintains and (especially) expands a writer's audience base is that mysterious magic we call: word of mouth.

Word of mouth, unlike paid advertising, comes free to the author � and it's ten times more effective than any kind of paid advertising, because it's the one form of promotion which people usually trust.

That being so, an author can hardly complain � since the author paid nothing for it either. And it is that word of mouth, percolating through the reading public down a million little channels, which is what really puts the food on an author's table. Don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise.

Think about it. How many people lend a book to a friend with the words: "You ought a read this! It's really terrible!"

How many people who read a book they like which they obtained from a public library never mention it to anyone? As a rule, in my experience, people who frequently borrow books from libraries are bibliophiles. And bibliophiles, in my experience, usually can't refrain from talking about books they like.

And, just as important � perhaps most important of all � free books are the way an audience is built in the first place. How many people who are low on cash and for that reason depend on libraries or personal loans later rise on the economic ladder and then buy books by the very authors they came to love when they were borrowing books?

Practically every reader, that's who. Most readers of science fiction and fantasy develop that interest as teenagers, mainly from libraries. That was certainly true of me. As a teenager, I couldn't afford to buy the dozen or so Robert Heinlein novels I read in libraries. Nor could I afford the six-volume Lensmen series by "Doc" Smith. Nor could I afford any of the authors I became familiar with in those days: Arthur Clarke, James H. Schmitz, you name it.

Did they "lose sales?" In the long run, not hardly. Because in the decades which followed, I bought all of their books � and usually, in fact, bought them over and over again to replace old copies which had gotten too worn and frayed. I just bought another copy of Robert Heinlein's The Puppet Masters, in fact, because the one I had was getting too long in the tooth. I think that's the third copy of that novel I've purchased, over the course of my life. I'm not sure. Might be the fourth. I first read that book when I was fourteen years old � forty years ago, now � checked out from my high school library.

In short, rather than worrying about online piracy � much less tying ourselves and society into knots trying to shackle everything � it just makes more sense, from a commercial as well as principled point of view � to "steal from the stealers. "

Don't bother robbing me, twit. I will cheerfully put up the stuff for free myself. Because I am quite confident that any "losses" I sustain will be more than made up for by the expansion in the size of my audience.

For me to worry about piracy would be like a singer in a piano bar worrying that someone might be taping the performance in order to produce a pirate recording. Just like they did to Maria Callas!

Sheesh. Best thing that could happen to me. . .

That assumes, of course, that the writer in question is producing good books. "Good," at least, in the opinion of enough readers. That is not always true, of course. But, frankly, a mediocre writer really doesn't have to worry about piracy anyway.

What about the future? people ask. Even if reading off a screen is not today as competitive as reading paper, what about the future when it will be? By which time advances in technology might make piracy so easy and ubiquitous that the income of authors really gets jeopardized?

My answer is:

Who knows?

I'm not worried about it, however, basically for two reasons.

The first is a simple truth which Jim Baen is fond of pointing out: most people would rather be honest than dishonest.

He's absolutely right about that. One of the things about the online debate over e-piracy that particularly galled me was the blithe assumption by some of my opponents that the human race is a pack of slavering would-be thieves held (barely) in check by the fear of prison sentences.

Oh, hogwash.

Sure, sure � if presented with a real "Devil's bargain," most people will at least be tempted. Eternal life. . . a million dollars found lying in the woods. . .

Heh. Many fine stories have been written on the subject!But how many people, in the real world, are going to be tempted to steal a few bucks?

Some, yes � precious few of whom, I suspect, read much of anything. But the truth is that most people are no more tempted to steal a few dollars than they are to spend their lunch hour panhandling for money on the streets. Partly because they don't need to, but mostly because it's beneath their dignity and self-respect.

The only time that mass scale petty thievery becomes a problem is when the perception spreads, among broad layers of the population, that a given product is priced artificially high due to monopolistic practices and/or draconian legislation designed to protect those practices. But so long as the "gap" between the price of a legal product and a stolen one remains both small and, in the eyes of most people, a legitimate cost rather than gouging, 99% of them will prefer the legal product.

Jim Baen is quite confident that, as technology changes the way books are produced and sold, he can figure out ways to keep that "gap" reasonable � and thus make money for himself and his authors in the process, by using the new technology rather than screaming about it. Certainly Baen's Webscriptions, where you can buy a month's offerings "bundled" at a price per title of around two bucks has demonstrated his sincerity in this.

(But he's just a publisher, of course, so what does he know?On the other hand. . . I'm generally inclined to have confidence in someone who is prepared to put his money where his mouth is. Instead of demanding that the taxpayers' money be put into building more prisons. )

The reason I'm not worried about the future is because of another simple truth. One which is even simpler, in fact � and yet seems to get constantly overlooked in the ruckus over online piracy and what (if anything) to do about it. To wit:

Nobody has yet come up with any technology � nor is it on the horizon � which could possibly replace authors as the producers of fiction. Nor has anyone suggested that there is any likelihood of the market for that product drying up.

The only issue, therefore, is simply the means by which authors get paid for their work.

That's a different kettle of fish entirely from a "threat" to the livelihood of authors. Some writers out there, imitating Chicken Little, seem to think they are on the verge of suffering the fate of buggy whip makers. But that analogy is ridiculous. Buggy whip makers went out of business because someone else invented something which eliminated the demand for buggy whips � not because Henry Ford figured out a way to steal the payroll of the buggy whip factory.

Is anyone eliminating the demand for fiction?Nope.

Has anyone invented a gadget which can write fiction?Nope.

All that is happening, as the technological conditions under which commercial fiction writing takes place continue to change, is that everyone is wrestling with the impact that might have on the way in which writers get paid. That's it. So why all the panic? Especially, why the hysterical calls for draconian regulation of new technology � which, leaving aside the damage to society itself, is far more likely to hurt writers than to help them?

The future can't be foretold. But, whatever happens, so long as writers are essential to the process of producing fiction � along with editors, publishers, proofreaders (if you think a computer can proofread, you're nuts) and all the other people whose work is needed for it � they will get paid. Because they have, as a class if not as individuals, a monopoly on the product. Far easier to figure out new ways of generating income � as we hope to do with the Baen Free Library � than to tie ourselves and society as a whole into knots. Which are likely to be Gordian Knots, to boot.

Okay. I will climb down from the soapbox. Herewith, the Baen Free Library. Enjoy yourselves!

Eric Flint
First Librarian
October 11, 2000

Edited by deleted (Tue 25-Jun-13 13:15:13)

A copy of the text is below.

Do you have permission to post a copy of text from another site?

And on a more serious note what is the point in pasting that wall of text in if you linked to the source anyway?

In reply to a post by ian72:

A copy of the text is below.

Do you have permission to post a copy of text from another site?

And on a more serious note what is the point in pasting that wall of text in if you linked to the source anyway?

given that a lot of people don't always follow links blindly over security concerns and there is a section of the internet who demand that "if there isn't a link it isn't valid" which is definately present on this board it was most likely best to post the link and the text.

But of course these days you cannot please anybody it seems on the net......

"these days"?

Thanks for posting that in full - I probably wouldn't have read it had you not.

A most interesting read!

FYI: I appreciated the pasting of text - as I avoid opening unknown URLs at work.

In reply to a post by undecidedadrian:

The only "restrictions" we'll be placing is simply that we will encourage authors to put up the first novel or novels in an ongoing popular series, where possible. And we will ask authors who are interested not to volunteer more than, at most, five or six novels or collections at any one time.

The reason for the first provision is obvious � to generate more public interest in an ongoing series. I'll have more to say about that in a moment.

A bit like what Sky are doing with Pick TV on Freeview.

Pick tv is full of old programes like Dog the bounty hunter, Road wars .and several other series that they repeat every few months.And from many of the ads for SKY tv, It's certainly something that i wouldn't want to pay for,as i don't feel it offers value for money

In reply to a post by tommy45:

Pick tv is full of old programes like Dog the bounty hunter, Road wars .and several other series that they repeat every few months.And from many of the ads for SKY tv, It's certainly something that i wouldn't want to pay for,as i don't feel it offers value for money

The principle is of giving older/partial content away for free in the hope that consumers buy the newer/full content as a result, as Baen give away some early novels in a series for free, in the hope that consumers buy the subsequent/other novels with real money.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

I know the problems lie with the people who control the rights. They just wont move away from that model.

Isn't that their right?

Have you ever considered giving any and all passers-by full access to your property? After all, in one way or another, you have stolen that property from the common weal, either by inheritance or acquisition.

its their right but I take issue with it when they are lobbying governments etc. for law changes to preserve their model instead of having the free market decide. I also take issue when they claim to be poor whilst having record profits.

Also bear in mind the fact its their right now is only due to previous lobbying to get law changes.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

The principle is of giving older/partial content away for free in the hope that consumers buy the newer/full content as a result, as Baen give away some early novels in a series for free, in the hope that consumers buy the subsequent/other novels with real money.

Thats how it all originally worked, after a few years content was free.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 26-Jun-13 09:25:43)

I can now access The Pirate Bay directly again on Plusnet!

Edited by deleted (Sun 30-Jun-13 11:07:27)

Well, it seems TPB is once again blocked by PN, however the usual proxy site still works. Alternatively, Tor and the recently launched browser from TPB both circumvent all this nonsense and will continue to do so regardless of any ISP. As usual, the best place for info is TorrentFreak.

In regards to how file sharing impacts upon artists and their abilities to monitize their work, a recent study suggests most artists benefit from file sharing whilst the distribution industry does not. A copy of this controversial 2013 paper, which was dismissed by the industry and the US government, can be downloaded here:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2...

No need for special browsers. https://immunicity.org/getstarted

Frankly sir, that is quite awesome

That's just a proxy, effectively.

A proxy, yes - but effective none the less.

Not a big deal either way, but is the block intentional on Plusnets part, accidental or something else?

In reply to a post by Peterx14:

Not a big deal either way, but is the block intentional on Plusnets part, accidental or something else?

Note the post from Chis Parr:
http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/plusnet/t/4246191-r...

I can confirm that we are not blocking it ourselves, and are looking into it as a problem.

The Pirate Bay is blocked again on Plusnet.

I can confirmed I can still access The Pirate Bay on plusnet, no problem here.

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I can confirmed I can still access The Pirate Bay on plusnet, no problem here.

Are you using http://thepiratebay.se/ ?

In reply to a post by OnFire:

In reply to a post by adslmax:

I can confirmed I can still access The Pirate Bay on plusnet, no problem here.

Are you using http://thepiratebay.se/ ?

yes I can access it, no problem. Also my friend who are with plusnet fibre can access it as well.

Edited by adslmax (Sun 12-Jan-14 20:46:01)

Doesn't work for me either on a different provider.

Looks like it is down

Down for everyone link

Well a look on Here would suggest that it maybe being blocked due to some routing issue that has occured several times during the previous year or so (plusnet customers) but TPB is up and accessable via the available proxies

Mirrors available. Not down if you know where to look. Virgin blocked the regular site long ago.

PB

Edited by deleted (Sun 12-Jan-14 21:38:01)

Not available via immunicity.org.

It was when i made my previous post, working

I can't get piratebay.se but can get to piratebay.come.in

Yes it's one of many alternative link's proxies,

i can get piratebay.sx, but not .se. using immunicity.

In reply to a post by cookie:

i can get piratebay.sx, but not .se. using immunicity.

Not here. Immunicity reports:

Sorry, but this website cannot be accessed via Immunicity.

Your request to access http://piratebay.sx/ could not be completed at this time. The reason provided is DNS resolution failure.

This is not a problem with your configuration or our service, instead it is a problem with the destination website. A DNS resolution failure means that Immunicity was not able to resolve the hostname presented in the URL to the corresponding IP address at this time.

You should try accessing this website again later to see if the problem has been resolved.

I thought I'd try it as I'm on PN but using Google DNS and I see DNS resolution errors too. The site is up though as I can access it through one of the proxies we can't mention. I tried it and some other sites covered by the UK court order soon after I joined PN and they were all accessible then.

Trying to access The Pirate Bay on Plusnet now gives the same error message as BT Retail (rather than the previous timeout):
Error � site blocked

Curiously The Pirate Bay's IP address is now unblocked:

http://194.71.107.80/

Who's DNS servers are you using?

Google DNS

So is that where it is blocked, rather than PlusNet?

Immunicity has been having problems, it keeps losing pages and puts up it's blue screen, often if I leave it alone it eventually finds what I was trying to reach after a couple of minutes

thepiratebay.sx was working for me but thepiratebay.se isn't via that service and I'm on VM here.

I use Google DNS on my home connection and a proxy in another country. The bay is only blocked on the former -

1 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 2.054 ms 1.110 ms 1.049 ms
2 lo0-central10.ptn-ag02.plus.net (195.166.128.191) 11.859 ms 10.503 ms 10.629 ms
3 link-b-central10.ptn-gw02.plus.net (212.159.2.134) 10.432 ms 10.406 ms 9.935 ms
4 xe-1-2-0.ptw-cr02.plus.net (212.159.0.114) 10.148 ms 20.075 ms 12.085 ms
5 195.99.126.182 (195.99.126.182) 13.604 ms 15.076 ms 15.272 ms
6 host213-121-193-147.ukcore.bt.net (213.121.193.147) 13.638 ms 11.378 ms 12.312 ms
7 * * *
8 * * *

It is not a DNS block, have tried with Plusnet DNS also. From googling it appears to be a Cleanfeed block.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleanfeed_(content_bloc...

Why are plusnet using BT retail peering in the first place ?

Well Plusnet are owned by BT. A tracert to what certainly looks like a correctly resolved IP for TPB does stop at a router which from the name appears to be BT owned. If it is their cleanfeed filtering box then no PN traffic should be directed through it and that needs fixng as it won't only be TPB that gets blocked. From what I've seen on mobiles adult filters block a very wide range of sites even down to the National Lottery (a gambling site).
===
OK somebody pointed me to the answer from PN staff in the mirror thread in their forum.

The blocking is occuring when traffic is routed though the BT network. This doesn't happen to all traffic, they aren't going to produce custom routing tables to avoid it because the proxies are a viable workround. No PN traffic will be affected by the BT porn filter as that is implemented in DNS. That fact also gives BT customers an easy workround too.

http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1171...

Posts 88 +91 are the PN staff replies which I have not copied word for word above.

Edited by kwikbreaks (Wed 15-Jan-14 13:14:29)

In reply to a post by tommy45:

Why are plusnet using BT retail peering in the first place ?

They don't.

Not what's said here

Where does it say they route across the BT Retail network?

BT is a major peer in Europe and across the world - hundreds, if not thousands, of ISPs use them as a peer. Their peering side is totally separate from their retail ISP side.

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

In reply to a post by tommy45:

Why are plusnet using BT retail peering in the first place ?

They don't.

for some routes plusnet traffic goes over the BT transit. However I wouldnt expect any filtering BT do to be done on their transit it would be in their central network.

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

Where does it say they route across the BT Retail network?

BT is a major peer in Europe and across the world - hundreds, if not thousands, of ISPs use them as a peer. Their peering side is totally separate from their retail ISP side.

See reply 88, confirms it but it does not say why this is so or why /if plusnet customers are subject to BT web filtering , if it was a wholesale link there would be no filtering. so the way it's getting routed that link must be shared with bt retail traffic and under their control

Edited by tommy45 (Wed 15-Jan-14 16:31:30)

In reply to a post by tommy45:

See reply 88, confirms it but it does not say why this is so or why /if plusnet customers are subject to BT web filtering , if it was a wholesale link there would be no filtering. so the way it's getting routed that link must be shared with bt retail traffic and under their control

Probably helps to post the quote for people not wanting to click it.

In reference to community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,117175.msg1061549.html#msg...:

Hi all,

Basically this is down to us routing traffic across the BT network. Given not all traffic is routed that way it does sometimes work, however in order to divert specific traffic away from this link we'd need to implement custom routing tables. This is something we deliberately don't do mostly because it's so work intensive and would quickly grow into an absolute monster to maintain.

Sorry if that's not the answer you needed, however the proxies linked above should work fine?

EDIT: s/customer/custom

The question as to why wholesale traffic is hitting the BT Retail copyright filter is an interesting one though.

Which could or would perhaps suggest that it isn't bt wholesales links being used but here bt retails? in which case plusnet would know only too well that it would result in the site/s being blocked

Edited by tommy45 (Wed 15-Jan-14 18:56:31)

In reply to a post by tommy45:

Which could or would perhaps suggest that it isn't bt wholesales links being used but here bt retails?

It would suggest that. An "interesting" network topology.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by tommy45:

Which could or would perhaps suggest that it isn't bt wholesales links being used but here bt retails?

It would suggest that. An "interesting" network topology.

What does Plusnet get out of this and is it an unusual practice?

Nothing unusual there - Plusnet is just a BT Consumer brand after all.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

Nothing unusual there - Plusnet is just a BT Consumer brand after all.

Perhaps the routing of traffic in itself is not unusual, and no-one on Plusnet would notice or care, if it didn't result in the blocking of a website which Plusnet have not been ordered to block.

This is censorship by the back door. PlusNET say they do not censor and have not been ordered to do so. Yet they are owned by BT group who do. So PlusNET wash their hands of it instead of complaining and giving their customers unfettered internet access. It's pure kow towing to their BT overlords. They are too fearful or uncaring to actually do anything about it for fear of upsetting their paymaster.

PlusNET are acting in a most dishonest manner.

BTW white knight copyright trolls can take their message elsewhere as this has nothing to do with copyrights and all about our rights to have uncensored access. If I decide to go to TPB that is my decision. Not yours. If a court order is given to PlusNET directly then so be it. If I choose to bypass that it is again my decision and I shall face the consequences of it. Right now PlusNET are not required to block TPB and are just giving out excuses because BT own them.

I know I can bypass it with proxies and VPN's. That is not the point and people who keep saying this instead of actually fighting the system don't help.

It's all 'I'm alright jack it doesn't affect me' until it actually does. But by then it may be too late to do anything about it.

Did you miss this quote earlier in the thread?

In reply to a post by kwikbreaks:

OK somebody pointed me to the answer from PN staff in the mirror thread in their forum.

The blocking is occurring when traffic is routed though the BT network. This doesn't happen to all traffic, they aren't going to produce custom routing tables to avoid it because the proxies are a viable workround. No PN traffic will be affected by the BT porn filter as that is implemented in DNS. That fact also gives BT customers an easy workround too.

http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,1171...

Posts 88 +91 are the PN staff replies which I have not copied word for word above.

Looks perfectly clear to me.

It's also obvious in this thread that not all customers are being routed that way. It's just the luck of the draw.

Although I agree with you that as Plusnet are not subject to a relevant Court Order Pirate Bay should not be blocked, it clearly is not deliberate. I think the explanation is rather different from the accusations made in your rant.

One thing that hasn't been said is that if Plusnet were to decide to work round that peering route then they would be almost be asking to have a Court Order obtained against them as they could be said to be deliberately aiding the copyright abusers. It would also I expect mean PN were paying more for alternative peering, which could to a small degree affect all of us.

Whilst I agree it may not be their fault. I disagree that something should not be done about it. Simply saying they should do nothing because they 'may' be forced to block it anyhow or because of some imaginary aiding and abetting scenario which has not come to pass should not mean they should not try.

This is all about washing hands.

As for peering alternatives well I can say they have not had a good record with peering anyhow. I point fingers at Proxad who have had atrocious packet loss recently affecting routing for some but PlusNET again find it 'just too much hard work' to route around the issue.

This along with the unencrypted signup page and other issues does not give me much confidence in this company whatsoever.

I forgot to add the terrible wait times on customer services.

Get your house in order PlusNET!

Edited by deleted (Tue 28-Jan-14 18:00:53)

Simply saying they should do nothing because they 'may' be forced to block it anyhow or because of some imaginary aiding and abetting scenario which has not come to pass should not mean they should not try.

That's only coming out of my head. I've not seen it suggested anywhere.

It gives Plusnet the unenviable reputation of being the only ISP to block websites on copyright grounds without being ordered to do so by the courts.

Edited by Oliver341 (Tue 28-Jan-14 18:06:01)

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

It gives Plusnet the unenviable reputation of being the only ISP to block websites on copyright grounds without being ordered to do so by the courts.

But Plusnet are not blocking the site, this is the difference.

Unfortunately, they have very little or no control on the traffic once it leaves their network. If one of their peers decides to block certain sites, there is very little they can do about it.

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

Unfortunately, they have very little or no control on the traffic once it leaves their network. If one of their peers decides to block certain sites, there is very little they can do about it.

Are you saying that Plusnet can't pick up the phone to BT and ask them not to put restrictions on their wholesale traffic?

Yes, I am. Some traffic goes across their Retail network, which already has the blocks in place through their clean feed system. Other sites blocked by court orders are still accessible with Plusnet.

It is almost inevitable that Plusnet will be part of future court orders if they continue to grow their business. This is why they have been reported to be working on their own blocking platform.

If anyone disagrees or has strong objections to these court orders, they can launch an intervention or appeal them.

So why are they using another ISP's network? why can't they use their own?
As for people appealing against web blocking they would have to have deep pockets to fight those big corporations that lobbied the likes of mandelscum to get this nonsense through Parliament ,in a very dodgy way, the lib dumbs mooted about repealing the DEB before they got elected ,
At the end of the day plusnet could if they wanted get the piratebay unblocked , just that clearly they don't want to do that, therefore they are facilitating in the blocking of the piratebay without a court order , leaves a bad taste in the mouth. this incidentally for many isn't just about the piratebay,potentially they could do the same thing with any web site so it's the principle of it , plusnet customers are not BT retail customers , or are they?

Edited by tommy45 (Tue 28-Jan-14 19:39:27)

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

Yes, I am.

I don't buy it. BT's wholesale traffic hasn't been implicated in a court order so there's no reason for BT to be messing with it. That's something Plusnet should be raising with BT.

In reply to a post by tommy45:

So why are they using another ISP's network? why can't they use their own?

Because some of BT's peering obviously goes through their own retail network. I cannot explain how or why this happens.

Plusnet do not have network infrastructure to be a major peer.

In reply to a post by tommy45:

At the end of the day plusnet could if they wanted get the piratebay unblocked , just that clearly they don't want to do that, therefore they are facilitating in the blocking of the piratebay without a court order , leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

How can they force one of their peers to unblock a site? The only other alternative is to put in manual routing tables which they have already stated is not something they will do.

they could stop routing over bt retail links why don't they use BT wholesale links instead these aren't filtered by default unless the isp requests this to be done

So then if we take what you say as how it is, lets say next week the bbc is blocked are they going to adopt the same attitude then ? after all they can't force their peer to unblock can they,

Truth is they could choose a diffrent peering provider i can't belive they are stuck with BT retail

Edited by tommy45 (Tue 28-Jan-14 19:48:34)

I think they route over BT's Peering (BT Global Services) and some of this routing ends up going through BT's retail network. This is something that Plusnet have zero control over - how BT manage their peering is up to them. I think the question has been raised by Plusnet about this and they are awaiting an answer.

But TPB site and its users breach copyrights on films/music etc. This has been ruled by a UK judge. You can argue left right and centre about this, but this is a fact. A site like bbc.co.uk would never be blocked here.

I am not too familiar with how peering works exactly, but I believe traffic is designed to take the shortest route. It's not just the case that Plusnet can pick up the phone to NTT/Level3/another other major peer and suddenly say I want all my TPB traffic to go through your networks.

Edited by deleted (Tue 28-Jan-14 19:55:12)

Maybe they can't control how a third party operates, but they can choose which companies they use to peer with and in some/most cases what traffic goes via each peering provider that they use

And it's irrelivent here what a uk court has ruled , because it has not ruled that plusnet or any other ISP not named in that court order are required to block web sites , so it as yet doesn't apply to this argument , only last night to img hosting sites where wrongly blocked by the IWF cache imgur.com (again) and postimg.org
plusnet forums Is just one example of how a incocent web site can be blocked it happens frequenly on most of the bigger isp's

Edited by tommy45 (Tue 28-Jan-14 20:15:37)

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

Because some of BT's peering obviously goes through their own retail network. I cannot explain how or why this happens.

But it's a question Plusnet need to be asking BT. Why it is BT choose to route traffic from Plusnet customers across a restricted network (retail) when there is an unrestricted network they can use (wholesale).

Of course Plusnet being owned by BT can be told "tough luck, suck it up, we'll do what we like with your customers' traffic" and Plusnet (and their customers) just have to sit there and take it from Daddy.

In reply to a post by tommy45:

i can't belive they are stuck with BT retail

The probably aren't, any more than any of us are with an 18-month Infinity term, or a 2-year mobile contract, or a 3-year car HP, or a 25-year house mortgage.

All contracts are easy to break.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 28-Jan-14 22:05:40)

About time english isp's did the same

laugh a minute..

Millions of people in the Netherlands will soon be able to regain access to The Pirate Bay after two local Internet providers won their appeal against the Hollywood-funded anti-piracy group BREIN. The Court of The Hague ruled today that the blockade is disproportionate, ineffective, and hinders the Internet providers� entrepreneurial freedoms.

I doubt that many in Holland who wanted to access the site were unable to anyway which is presumably well known to the Dutch courts too considering "iineffefective" was mentioned in the ruling.

Given just how ineffective the block is why are so many people making such a fuss about direct access via Plusnet?

probably because plusnet appear to be blocking access off their own bat, ie not required to block by court order, the bt peering is blocking and we ain't excuse isn't accepted ,people /customers perhaps feel that they should route to it differently, but above all it doesn't sit well with a lot of people, that an isp is blocking web sites on it's on volition for them it being the piratebay isnt the issue, they don't want their isp blocking anything unless required to do so via a court order they see their freedom of a more or less uncensored internet being eroded
And as web blocking is not effective why bother doing it, ?

Edited by tommy45 (Wed 29-Jan-14 00:14:45)

The Court of Appeals in The Hague lifted a block on The Pirate Bay Tuesday because the order was ineffective.


The Hague District Court in January 2012 had ordered two ISPs (Ziggo and XS4ALL) to block The Pirate Bay. T-Mobile was also ordered to block The Pirate Bay, but sold its ADSL business.

The appeals court noted in its verdict that the block was ineffective because it was easily circumvented by the ISPs� subscribers.

Amsterdam University�s Institute of Information Law reported that the number of illegal downloads after the block was put in place actually increased.

�The circumstance that, despite the blockade, the number of illegal downloaders has increased indicates that newcomers, at least a significant number of them, is not deterred by a blockade to start downloading from illegal sources,� the court said.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/news/story/the_pirate_bay_...

In reply to a post by tommy45:

About time english isp's did the same

Interesting.

I wonder if RobertoS thinks the Dutch courts are "deliberately aiding the copyright abusers"

probably because plusnet appear to be blocking access off their own bat, ie not required to block by court order,

So, if the comments in this thread are correct Plusnet, presumably for some sort of techical/financial reasons are using BT for peering. That link happens to have filtering in place. The result is a financial decision has probably had an unintended consequence. That does not mean they have conciously decided to block.

I am sure Plusnet could change their peering. They probably have good rates currently from their parent company so any change to peering will potentially cost more. That means to sustain it Plusnet probably need to charge more. How many customers would complain that Plusnet charge more so that a proportion of their customer base can access TPB that has been legally blocked via some ISPs?

I suspect more people would complain about price increases than would complain that TPB has been inadvertently blocked.

I don't read malice or forethought in this from Plusnet - just a side effect of a commercial decision.

In reply to a post by ian72:

probably because plusnet appear to be blocking access off their own bat, ie not required to block by court order,

So, if the comments in this thread are correct Plusnet, presumably for some sort of techical/financial reasons are using BT for peering.

That's because Plusnet are BT. Plusnet is a brand name used by BT Consumer.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

I wonder if RobertoS thinks the Dutch courts are "deliberately aiding the copyright abusers"

Heh . But, tut tut to you. I never gave that as an opinion of mine wrt the current discussion.

The Appeal Court over there has reached a decision in line with the law applicable in Holland, wrt to a particular court order.

The quote you give from my post, when seen in context, clearly refers to the view the UK courts could almost certainly take should Plusnet put effort into avoiding the blocked peering route and a copyright holder were to apply for a new order against PN, or an extension of the existing order to include PN. The full quote, with new highlighting:-

One thing that hasn't been said is that if Plusnet were to decide to work round that peering route then they would be almost be asking to have a Court Order obtained against them as they could be said to be deliberately aiding the copyright abusers.

The paragraph prior to that, with the bold type present there and not just highlighted here for effect, says:-

Although I agree with you that as Plusnet are not subject to a relevant Court Order Pirate Bay should not be blocked, it clearly is not deliberate.

Have at ye, varlet!

In reply to a post by ian72:

I am sure Plusnet could change their peering.

Yup. From BT Retail (filtered) to BT Wholesale (unfiltered). Both from their parent company so unlikely to cost more.

Not possible.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

In reply to a post by ian72:

probably because plusnet appear to be blocking access off their own bat, ie not required to block by court order,

So, if the comments in this thread are correct Plusnet, presumably for some sort of techical/financial reasons are using BT for peering.

That's because Plusnet are BT. Plusnet is a brand name used by BT Consumer.

I know they were bought by the BT group but they still, as far as I am aware, run as a semi-independent trading arm of the group and do not use the same processes/equipment/staff/etc as BT retail/wholesale - therefore they have options as long as the parent does not force them down a particular route. And if they are forced that could be the "financial" reason for doing so.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by ian72:

I am sure Plusnet could change their peering.

Yup. From BT Retail (filtered) to BT Wholesale (unfiltered). Both from their parent company so unlikely to cost more.

I don't think it's as easy as flicking a switch.

PlusNet's traffic has to go through the BT Wholesale (20CN or 21CN networks) - so when the traffic goes from your local exchange, it travels over these networks to PlusNet's gateway locations in Telehouse and Telecity London. There should not be any filtering here.

Once the traffic goes through PlusNet's network, the traffic is then routed through peers. PlusNet's routing to thepiratebay.se goes through BT Global Services and it seems to be filtered. The explanation given is that some of BT's peering goes through their retail network and is subject to their cleanfeed filter - but this is not something PlusNet can control. How BT route their peering is up to them.

There are other court blocked sites that route through BT's peering that are still accessible for PlusNet users.

In reply to a post by AndyHCZ:

How BT route their peering is up to them.

I guess at least routing TPB via BT will save Plusnet some bandwidth, it doesn't take much bandwidth to load a page saying "Error - site blocked". If it reduces some p2p activity on Plusnet then all the better for them too, money savings all round, and they didn't even need to wait for a court order. It's a win-win for Plusnet.

How will it save any bandwidth? If somebody hits the "error blocked page" they'll then either already know a proxy or worse spend more bandwidth finding one. If they are really clueless they'll search for a forum to ask what to do. Result - more bandwidth used rather than less.

In reply to a post by kwikbreaks:

If somebody hits the "error blocked page" they'll then either already know a proxy or worse spend more bandwidth finding one.

Some will, some won't. Not everyone is like you.

How much longer will this mind-numbing know it all drivel continue?

In reply to a post by professor973:

How much longer will this mind-numbing know it all drivel continue?

Just as soon as you stop talking.

It's probably saving Plusnet some bandwidth though

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by professor973:

How much longer will this mind-numbing know it all drivel continue?

Just as soon as you stop talking.

[censored]

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

Some will, some won't. Not everyone is like you.

Well yeah - I guess you'd class it as monster intelligence to do a search for "Error � site blocked" which is what you get if you try to access the site directly.

Anyhow enough of this drivel - I'm out of here. For now at least.

In reply to a post by kwikbreaks:

Well yeah - I guess you'd class it as monster intelligence to do a search for "Error � site blocked" which is what you get if you try to access the site directly.

Not saying it requires great intelligence, just that some may not bother.

In reply to a post by ian72:

I know they were bought by the BT group but they still, as far as I am aware, run as a semi-independent trading arm of the group and do not use the same processes/equipment/staff/etc as BT retail/wholesale - therefore they have options as long as the parent does not force them down a particular route. And if they are forced that could be the "financial" reason for doing so.

Well, BT says this

In reference to www.btplc.com/Careercentre/Aboutus/Ourorganisation/BTRetail/index.htm:

BT Retail has four customer-facing divisions: BT Consumer, BT Business, BT Ireland and BT Enterprises.


BT Consumer

We are the leading consumer voice and broadband provider in Great Britain and have a growing pay-TV service. We sell our services under the BT and Plusnet brands.

Yes? Does that confirm or deny any position that either of us have taken? Even under that Plusnet could be a semi autonomous arm with its own financial accounts and choices over how it procures/provides its services.

Obviously if a court order to block TPB is made to BT Retail then BT Consumer (BT and Plusnet), BT Business, BT Ireland and BT Enterprises are covered.

I guess it depends on the wording of the court order - on the face of it that seems to be the case so why haven't the courts been complaining that BT have not properly implemented across the whole BT Retail group? Either they missed it or there was something more specific in the court order as to exactly what part of BT it referred to.

As linked to earlier in the thread by Oldjim. including a quotation. Here's a different one:-

3.In an earlier judgment in these proceedings handed down on 20 February 2012 [2012] EWHC 268 (Ch) ("the First Judgment"), I held that both users and the operators of TPB infringe the copyrights of the Claimants (and those that they represent) in the UK. Since then, the Claimants have agreed the terms of orders under section 97A of the 1988 Act with five of the Defendants.

Pure surmising by me, but it could be that in those unpublished terms only BT branded Broadband itself and not Plusnet was specified as having to block Pirate Bay.

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 31-Jan-14 13:13:26)

It is the definition of who - I don't think Plusnet are covered by the court order and even if they aren't there is nothing stopping them using the BT systems that are - there is, as far as I am aware, currently no legal requirement that ISPs have to provide a clear Internet feed - I am aware that various bodies lobby for this especially in the US but I don't believe it is a requirement of UK law.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Pure surmising by me, but it could be that in those unpublished terms only BT branded Broadband itself and not Plusnet was specified as having to block Pirate Bay.

Perhaps it would be relevant to determine what details were given in the claim regarding the identity of the BT entity named as a defendant.

Just a thought.

You should all be using VPN's especially with the DEA coming into force soon (recording will start before).

"All" of us?

I've no need for VPNs .

The Pirate Bay UNBLOCKED: Entrepreneurial freedom overrides property rights, court rules

In reference to www.maxkeiser.com/2014/01/the-pirate-bay-unblocked/:

Dutch court rules in favor of unblocking Pirate Bay as ban �ineffective�

The Court of The Hague released its verdict that two leading ISPs operating in the country � XS4All and Ziggo � no longer have to block access to file sharing website The Pirate Bay.

�In applying the case law from the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the Court of Appeal held that an access provider is not under an obligation to take measures that are disproportional and/or ineffective� according to the legal representative of XS4ALL.

The court�s verdict was based on the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which includes the �freedom to conduct a business� and �right to property.� Entrepreneurial freedom overrides property rights, the court ruled.

Read more http://www.maxkeiser.com/2014/01/the-pirate-bay-unbl...

We know the entity named as defendant. We know it owns Plusnet.

In reply to a post by majika2007:

The Pirate Bay UNBLOCKED: Entrepreneurial freedom overrides property rights, court rules

Keep up at the back . Several posts follow it on that subject.

We know the entity named as defendant

Do we? I am aware it contains the letters B and T but I am not sure if it had any more clarification of that as those letters are used at any number of levels in the organisation and I have no idea if they targetted part of BT or all of BT - and if it was all then why aren't BT Wholesale blocking it as well?

It's in the thread, long before it's reincarnation. It's also in the linked 2 May judgement pdf.

Edited by RobertoS (Fri 31-Jan-14 17:06:30)

In reply to a post by ian72:

We know the entity named as defendant

Do we? I am aware it contains the letters B and T but I am not sure if it had any more clarification of that as those letters are used at any number of levels in the organisation and I have no idea if they targetted part of BT or all of BT - and if it was all then why aren't BT Wholesale blocking it as well?

BT wholesale only resell backhaul data transit , they are not an ISP , and it's up to the isp how or if it filters any of the internet take AAISP as one expample of an ISP that uses BTwholesale as well as others, If BTwholesale ever implemented filtering and there was no option to have unfiltered they would loose a lot of money me think's