15 ms·

RIAA to .ORG Registry: Take down ThePirateBay

223 points by StuntPope 10y ago

emortallj 10y ago
Well put, and fully agree! Thanks for stating this so clearly.
gcb0 10y ago
moving my business to easydns!
- donarb 10y ago
  Really? Did you read the whole article? "We aren't talking wikileaks here, this isn't a free speech or a whistelblowing issue, it's a due process issue. Bittorrent sites expecting some kind of safe refuge on easyDNS believing we would approach the situations they get us into under the former would be severely mistaken."
  - JoshTriplett 10y ago
    That's an entirely reasonable response. They allowed TPB because TPB very specifically noted how they maintain compliance with easyDNS's policies. They wouldn't necessarily support an arbitrary torrent provider on principle.
- chocolatebunny 10y ago
  I like that they're based in Ontario, Canada. Which is where I am based in as well. It's nice to have a domain hosting company in the same nation as you, so you know that they'll follow the same laws you are obligated to follow, and not the laws of some other nation south of the border.
- the_derelict 10y ago
  What a silly reason to make a business decision
- whamlastxmas 10y ago
  Canada has a somewhat controversial track record regarding freedom of speech. It's not a country I'd want to move my business to if I was concerned about overbearing governments.
ikeboy 10y ago
>TPB is DMCA compliant I thought they explicitly weren't. See http://beebulletin.com/hilarious-pirate-bay-legal-responses/ http://beebulletin.com/hilarious-pirate-bay-legal-responses/, or https://torrentfreak.com/completely-ignoring-the-dmca-an-option-for-torrent-sites-160131/ https://torrentfreak.com/completely-ignoring-the-dmca-an-opt... (from earlier this year) "The Pirate Bay has refused to take anything down on copyright grounds from day one and yet it remains up today." Is there any other indication that TPB has begun obeying DMCA requests, or are they lying?
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  They only host magnet hashes. None of their content is DMCA-actionable.
  - Esau 10y ago
    They are not a US site so why would they concern themselves with the DMCA?
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      Several TLD registries exist under US control, allowing for their use in exerting US will.
      - digi_owl 10y ago
        Why i have long wanted to see the gTLDs moved to .us to make that overt.
    - ikeboy 10y ago
      That's not the point. They claimed to be DMCA-compliant, whether they need to doesn't have bearing to whether that's true.
      - lucideer 10y ago
        I've not researched their compliance in detail, but from a purely logical perspective, the point would be that they are DMCA-compliant by being exempt from any actions required of them in response to DMCA requests. They comply with all DMCA requirements, which for them is none.
JohnLeTigre 10y ago
If their argument holds in court, wouldn't this mean that they could go after Google too, on the premise that if you add "Torrent" to your search request, it directs you to illegal content and that (according to their skewed logic) this would imply that Google "contains or promotes" illegal material/activity. The internet contains and promotes everything.
- JoshTriplett 10y ago
  They do attempt to go after Google; search https://www.lumendatabase.org/ https://www.lumendatabase.org/ for notices sent to Google. (That doesn't make it reasonable to do so; just noting the current state.)
- hasenj 10y ago
  Google does comply with DMCA. Google is not setup explicitly for the purpose of finding pirated material. The pirate bay is. And it's pretty obvious from the name too. I don't see how their logic is "skewed".
  - dragandj 10y ago
    How do you mean The Pirate Bay is set up explicitly for finding pirated material? Where does that come from? They are set up for finding torrents. Torrents can be and often are completely legitimate. Sometimes they contain pirated material, but even that material is never in contact with TPB site. About the name: Yes, it contains the word "Pirate". It doesn't mean that the actual pirates are there. Also, Amazon is a legitimate online store, not a river with a surrounding jungle. Kayak does not sell kayaks, and Apple is not about apples at all.
    - efdee 10y ago
      Take a look at https://thepiratebay.org/browse https://thepiratebay.org/browse. Do you still want to argue that TPB was not set up for finding pirated material?
      - 10y ago
icebraining 10y ago
For those who haven't seen them (I don't know when it was taken down), TPB used to have a quite funny list of legal demands and their replies: https://web.archive.org/web/20110709061457/http://thepiratebay.org/legal https://web.archive.org/web/20110709061457/http://thepirateb...
TempleOS 10y ago
This is hilarious. God is going to testify and the CIA will shit their pants. Truth will come-out on everyhting and the oppressors will get lynched. God says... laziness how_about_that run_away shist hypocrite not_good how_do_I_put_this virtue Varoom jobs not_too_shabby far_out_man ahh_thats_much_better lust homo just_lovely skills couldn't_be_better well_I_never failure_is_not_an_option Watch_this middle_class epic_fail hang_in_there are_you_feeling_lucky on_the_otherhand food China good thats_right who's_to_say who_are_you_to_judge This is fucken hilarious. A punk tries to pull justice and get justice on His ass from God.
sklogic 10y ago
Time to take down RIAA.
- benmcnelly 10y ago
  That's a terrible plan, or at the least something you shouldn't post online.
  - sklogic 10y ago
    There must be a lot of entirely legal means of doing so. They overreached their authority enough for a proper punishment.
    - benmcnelly 10y ago
      I should have put a winky face beside it indicate I was being coy not serious. I think all comments are interpreted to be super serious. I almost made a comment about just saying something like that putting you on their "list", but I am sure that's silly, they probably don't have lists. ;-)
tkubacki 10y ago
Always admire 'go f#=%# yourself' statement expressed in a polite way
dreamdu5t 10y ago
Google is worse than the pirate bay considering they profit from pirated material.
- kingnothing 10y ago
  TPB has ads. They profit plenty as well.
brighton36 10y ago
It's probable that this is a good use for the Bitcoin blockchain. Uncensorable DNS. I don't think many sites need that, but it's probably a good thing to have as a browser extension for those that do
kyledrake 10y ago
The general legal precedent here as I see it is that domain registrars are generally not liable for content hosted on domains they sell, nor are they responsible for enforcing them. They usually will cooperate to take down sites if they are obvious phishing attacks, or if there is a court order, but abuse management through this channel is very rare. More often than that, they refer any reports to the owner of the IP address the domain is pointing to. The "entry point" for almost all abuse (DMCA/phishing/whatever) reporting is whomever holds the abuse contact for the owner of the IP addresses. They simply do a lookup on the IPs with ARIN (or APNIC or RIPE depending on where the IPs are managed), and then email that abuse contact. We've had plenty of issues with this approach, now that Neocities hosts a lot of sites. I've recently acquired an IP block largely for the purpose of having control over this abuse contact, so that we can directly receive abuse emails. Some providers also do SWIP, which allows you to be the contact for a specific IP address in their block, but not all providers will do this (Ramnode does - DigitalOcean does not. I don't think Google Cloud or AWS do this either, but let me know if they do). Bigger organizations that need this level of control go this route - you'll note that even companies like Uber use their own IP addresses instead of throwing it up on a cloud providers'. If you're planning to host a lot of user submitted web sites or content, this isn't the easiest/cheapest route, but it's the route you want to seek. I'm available for consulting on this if you'd like to pursue this for your organization, I've become quite the expert on the topic out of necessity. :)
- cft 10y ago
  FIY: at some point we owned a /22, but it was statically routed to us by our upstream ISPs. They would send sometime bogus DMCA noticed to our ISPs (they did not even bother sending them to us, since they knew the notices were defective- they were looking for an easy target). Only when we became our own ISP and started BGP routing with our upstream, they we actually got a handle of our abuse contact. This is necessary for any site with a lot of user generated content these days. So now they are fishing for a new easy target- the registrars.
vbezhenar 10y ago
Just bookmark http://uj3wazyk5u4hnvtk.onion http://uj3wazyk5u4hnvtk.onion and don't care about it.

223 points by StuntPope 10y ago

emortallj 10y ago

Well put, and fully agree! Thanks for stating this so clearly.

gcb0 10y ago

moving my business to easydns!

donarb 10y ago
Really? Did you read the whole article? "We aren't talking wikileaks here, this isn't a free speech or a whistelblowing issue, it's a due process issue. Bittorrent sites expecting some kind of safe refuge on easyDNS believing we would approach the situations they get us into under the former would be severely mistaken."
- JoshTriplett 10y ago
  That's an entirely reasonable response. They allowed TPB because TPB very specifically noted how they maintain compliance with easyDNS's policies. They wouldn't necessarily support an arbitrary torrent provider on principle.
chocolatebunny 10y ago
I like that they're based in Ontario, Canada. Which is where I am based in as well. It's nice to have a domain hosting company in the same nation as you, so you know that they'll follow the same laws you are obligated to follow, and not the laws of some other nation south of the border.
the_derelict 10y ago
What a silly reason to make a business decision
whamlastxmas 10y ago
Canada has a somewhat controversial track record regarding freedom of speech. It's not a country I'd want to move my business to if I was concerned about overbearing governments.

ikeboy 10y ago

>TPB is DMCA compliant I thought they explicitly weren't. See http://beebulletin.com/hilarious-pirate-bay-legal-responses/ http://beebulletin.com/hilarious-pirate-bay-legal-responses/, or https://torrentfreak.com/completely-ignoring-the-dmca-an-option-for-torrent-sites-160131/ https://torrentfreak.com/completely-ignoring-the-dmca-an-opt... (from earlier this year) "The Pirate Bay has refused to take anything down on copyright grounds from day one and yet it remains up today." Is there any other indication that TPB has begun obeying DMCA requests, or are they lying?

toomuchtodo 10y ago
They only host magnet hashes. None of their content is DMCA-actionable.
- Esau 10y ago
  They are not a US site so why would they concern themselves with the DMCA?
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    Several TLD registries exist under US control, allowing for their use in exerting US will.
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      Why i have long wanted to see the gTLDs moved to .us to make that overt.
  - ikeboy 10y ago
    That's not the point. They claimed to be DMCA-compliant, whether they need to doesn't have bearing to whether that's true.
    - lucideer 10y ago
      I've not researched their compliance in detail, but from a purely logical perspective, the point would be that they are DMCA-compliant by being exempt from any actions required of them in response to DMCA requests. They comply with all DMCA requirements, which for them is none.

JohnLeTigre 10y ago

If their argument holds in court, wouldn't this mean that they could go after Google too, on the premise that if you add "Torrent" to your search request, it directs you to illegal content and that (according to their skewed logic) this would imply that Google "contains or promotes" illegal material/activity. The internet contains and promotes everything.

JoshTriplett 10y ago
They do attempt to go after Google; search https://www.lumendatabase.org/ https://www.lumendatabase.org/ for notices sent to Google. (That doesn't make it reasonable to do so; just noting the current state.)
hasenj 10y ago
Google does comply with DMCA. Google is not setup explicitly for the purpose of finding pirated material. The pirate bay is. And it's pretty obvious from the name too. I don't see how their logic is "skewed".
- dragandj 10y ago
  How do you mean The Pirate Bay is set up explicitly for finding pirated material? Where does that come from? They are set up for finding torrents. Torrents can be and often are completely legitimate. Sometimes they contain pirated material, but even that material is never in contact with TPB site. About the name: Yes, it contains the word "Pirate". It doesn't mean that the actual pirates are there. Also, Amazon is a legitimate online store, not a river with a surrounding jungle. Kayak does not sell kayaks, and Apple is not about apples at all.
  - efdee 10y ago
    Take a look at https://thepiratebay.org/browse https://thepiratebay.org/browse. Do you still want to argue that TPB was not set up for finding pirated material?
    - 10y ago

icebraining 10y ago

For those who haven't seen them (I don't know when it was taken down), TPB used to have a quite funny list of legal demands and their replies: https://web.archive.org/web/20110709061457/http://thepiratebay.org/legal https://web.archive.org/web/20110709061457/http://thepirateb...

TempleOS 10y ago

This is hilarious. God is going to testify and the CIA will shit their pants. Truth will come-out on everyhting and the oppressors will get lynched. God says... laziness how_about_that run_away shist hypocrite not_good how_do_I_put_this virtue Varoom jobs not_too_shabby far_out_man ahh_thats_much_better lust homo just_lovely skills couldn't_be_better well_I_never failure_is_not_an_option Watch_this middle_class epic_fail hang_in_there are_you_feeling_lucky on_the_otherhand food China good thats_right who's_to_say who_are_you_to_judge This is fucken hilarious. A punk tries to pull justice and get justice on His ass from God.

sklogic 10y ago

Time to take down RIAA.

benmcnelly 10y ago
That's a terrible plan, or at the least something you shouldn't post online.
- sklogic 10y ago
  There must be a lot of entirely legal means of doing so. They overreached their authority enough for a proper punishment.
  - benmcnelly 10y ago
    I should have put a winky face beside it indicate I was being coy not serious. I think all comments are interpreted to be super serious. I almost made a comment about just saying something like that putting you on their "list", but I am sure that's silly, they probably don't have lists. ;-)

tkubacki 10y ago

Always admire 'go f#=%# yourself' statement expressed in a polite way

dreamdu5t 10y ago

Google is worse than the pirate bay considering they profit from pirated material.

kingnothing 10y ago
TPB has ads. They profit plenty as well.

brighton36 10y ago

It's probable that this is a good use for the Bitcoin blockchain. Uncensorable DNS. I don't think many sites need that, but it's probably a good thing to have as a browser extension for those that do

kyledrake 10y ago

The general legal precedent here as I see it is that domain registrars are generally not liable for content hosted on domains they sell, nor are they responsible for enforcing them. They usually will cooperate to take down sites if they are obvious phishing attacks, or if there is a court order, but abuse management through this channel is very rare. More often than that, they refer any reports to the owner of the IP address the domain is pointing to. The "entry point" for almost all abuse (DMCA/phishing/whatever) reporting is whomever holds the abuse contact for the owner of the IP addresses. They simply do a lookup on the IPs with ARIN (or APNIC or RIPE depending on where the IPs are managed), and then email that abuse contact. We've had plenty of issues with this approach, now that Neocities hosts a lot of sites. I've recently acquired an IP block largely for the purpose of having control over this abuse contact, so that we can directly receive abuse emails. Some providers also do SWIP, which allows you to be the contact for a specific IP address in their block, but not all providers will do this (Ramnode does - DigitalOcean does not. I don't think Google Cloud or AWS do this either, but let me know if they do). Bigger organizations that need this level of control go this route - you'll note that even companies like Uber use their own IP addresses instead of throwing it up on a cloud providers'. If you're planning to host a lot of user submitted web sites or content, this isn't the easiest/cheapest route, but it's the route you want to seek. I'm available for consulting on this if you'd like to pursue this for your organization, I've become quite the expert on the topic out of necessity. :)

cft 10y ago
FIY: at some point we owned a /22, but it was statically routed to us by our upstream ISPs. They would send sometime bogus DMCA noticed to our ISPs (they did not even bother sending them to us, since they knew the notices were defective- they were looking for an easy target). Only when we became our own ISP and started BGP routing with our upstream, they we actually got a handle of our abuse contact. This is necessary for any site with a lot of user generated content these days. So now they are fishing for a new easy target- the registrars.

vbezhenar 10y ago

Just bookmark http://uj3wazyk5u4hnvtk.onion http://uj3wazyk5u4hnvtk.onion and don't care about it.