IFPI Gets Israeli Court To Block (And Advertise) File Sharing Site
Date : 06 Mar 2008 Category : Business
Techdirt
The entertainment industry really has a way about convincing judges and politicians that something really awful is going on with bittorrent search engines -- despite the fact that they have yet to present any evidence that any of them are illegal. Since they're search engines, they are not hosting any infringing content, and there are plenty of legitimate uses of these systems, as can be seen by the fact that Trent Reznor just used various torrent sites to help promote his latest album (which appears to be doing quite well). If there are problems with particular content, the answer isn't to blame the site, but to go after those responsible for offering up the infringing content itself. Yet, through various scare tactics, the entertainment industry convinces judges and politicians that it's the search engines' fault. The latest is in Israel, where the IFPI has convinced a judge to order the country's largest ISPs to block a torrent site named Httpshare. This doesn't appear to fit with the laws in Israel at all, which has some wondering why the judge would make such an order. Of course, the end result will likely backfire on the IFPI. Remember, it was just a few weeks ago that a Danish court similarly ordered ISPs to block Pirate Bay. The end result was just to generate a lot more attention for Pirate Bay increasing traffic greatly from Denmark. The same thing is likely to now happen in Israel with Httpshare, a site I'd never heard about. There will be rather easy workarounds for users who want to get there, and thanks to the IFPI putting it in the headlines, chances are many more people will go check it out.
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