3 ms·

When I was in Ireland last year, many torrent sites were blocked at the ISP level (with big scary "you are doing something illegal" pages in their place). I fo

by seiji 13y ago

When I was in Ireland last year, many torrent sites were blocked at the ISP level (with big scary "you are doing something illegal" pages in their place). I found it kinda amazing they were so blatant in their censorship. (Only some ISPs did it though. I got around the cable Internet censorship by tethering to my 4G iPhone on an EE SIM.)

k-mcgrady 13y ago
I'm in Northern Ireland (so different ISP's to the Republic - not sure which you're referring to) and the reason torrent sites are blocked here is due to a high profile court case in which ISP's were legally required to block specific sites. AFAIK they actually fought against it. When you visit the sites you get a message from your ISP explaining that it's blocked because they "received an order from the Courts requiring us to prevent access to this site in order to help protect against copyright infringement".
- dingaling 13y ago
  Hello fellow NIer! Bout ye. Bizarrely, only some UK ISPs are legally required to implement those torrent and 'piracy' blocks: BT Retail, Virgin Media, TalkTalk and O2. Even BT's subsidiary PlusNet wasn't subject to the order, nor was O2's sibling BE. So I don't really know why the judge bothered.
  - desas 13y ago
    Only there most popular ISPs were taken to court.
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    Hello! I wasn't aware of that, good to know. The blocks are useless and easy to bypass with a proxy. I've noticed recently though they've started to block some of the proxies specifically setup to help people flout the blocks.
Macha 13y ago
In RoI, the only torrent site that was blocked by all ISPs was The Pirate Bay. Eircom rolled over for the media industry, but the other ISPs fought and lost a court case over TPB. There may be another case about KAT soon from what I've heard. Eircom has presumably blocked more sites. AFAIK, NI has a few more sites blocked.

by seiji 13y ago

k-mcgrady 13y ago

I'm in Northern Ireland (so different ISP's to the Republic - not sure which you're referring to) and the reason torrent sites are blocked here is due to a high profile court case in which ISP's were legally required to block specific sites. AFAIK they actually fought against it. When you visit the sites you get a message from your ISP explaining that it's blocked because they "received an order from the Courts requiring us to prevent access to this site in order to help protect against copyright infringement".

dingaling 13y ago
Hello fellow NIer! Bout ye. Bizarrely, only some UK ISPs are legally required to implement those torrent and 'piracy' blocks: BT Retail, Virgin Media, TalkTalk and O2. Even BT's subsidiary PlusNet wasn't subject to the order, nor was O2's sibling BE. So I don't really know why the judge bothered.
- desas 13y ago
  Only there most popular ISPs were taken to court.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  Hello! I wasn't aware of that, good to know. The blocks are useless and easy to bypass with a proxy. I've noticed recently though they've started to block some of the proxies specifically setup to help people flout the blocks.

Macha 13y ago

In RoI, the only torrent site that was blocked by all ISPs was The Pirate Bay. Eircom rolled over for the media industry, but the other ISPs fought and lost a court case over TPB. There may be another case about KAT soon from what I've heard. Eircom has presumably blocked more sites. AFAIK, NI has a few more sites blocked.