PIRATE BAY BEING BLOCKED BY COMCAST AND OTHER ISP'S?

Reports have begun sprouting up all over the Internet claiming that Comcast, and a handful of other ISPs, are blocking access to torrent treasure trove, The Pirate Bay.

Users have reported attempts to navigate to thepiratebay.org result in a timeout error, even switching DNS servers to make sure it wasn’t a name-server record error causing the behavior. After firing up a VPN client and initiating a session, connectivity to the site was immediately restored. Comcast now has more impetus to bar connections to the torrent index — its merger with NBC Universal means that the ISP owns content that is potentially being shared illegally — but the blocking of sites that do not further a corporation’s interests is a very slippery slope.

Comcast has issued the following statement: “We’re not blocking PirateBay [The Pirate Bay] and reports online indicate users from several ISPs around the world are affected.

WHAT IS MUSICBAY AND SHOULD THE MUSIC LABELS BE AFRAID?

A few years ago the Pirate Bay crew registered a domain name that until now hasn’t been very active, themusicbay.org. At the time it was registered there were plans to create the most efficient music sharing system ever built, but these were put aside as other projects needed more urgent attention.

In recent days, however, rumors started to grow that The Music Bay domain might be put to use after all. It is currently setup to serve ads for The Pirate Bay website, but this spring it could be hosting a special surprise for the music industry.

The currently active subdomain fear.themusicbay.org is currently displaying a “comming soon” [sic] title so TorrentFreak caught up with a Pirate Bay insider to learn more about the plans for the site. Although the Pirate Bay crew is reluctant to release any specific details, their intentions are obvious.

“The music industry can’t even imagine what we’re planning to roll out in the coming months. For years they’ve complained bitterly about piracy, but if they ever had a reason to be scared it is now,” TorrentFreak was told. “It will be a special surprise for IFPI’s 78th birthday, and we’re thinking of organizing a huge festival in Rome where IFPI was founded.”

IFPI is of course the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, one of the most active anti-piracy outfits and a long-time adversary of The Pirate Bay. Formed under Italy’s fascist government of Benito Mussolini in 1933, IFPI will turn 78 in April of 2011.

TorrentFreak did ask for more details about “The Music Bay”, but the above is all we are able to reveal at this stage. What’s clear from the conversation we had, however, is that the major record labels are in for a big surprise. More details are expected to follow in the near future.

Without any hard evidence all the above can of course be interpreted in a million ways. We simply don’t know what the announced project will be, who will run it and what it will do. For all we know the entire project is nothing more that a domain name, registered and used just for the purpose to put fear into the already quite paranoid music industry.

PIRATE BAY FOUNDERS LOSE APPEAL

The founders of Pirate Bay, a bit-torrent sharing site, have lost their appeal in Swedish court. Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg and Carl Lundstrom were originally convicted of copyright circumvention in April 2009 after a lengthy and contentious trial. The Swedish appeals court has upheld that original conviction. The appeals court did reduce the jail time for the four members, Fredrik Neij will serve a 10 month sentence; Peter Sunde eight months and Carl Lundstrom four months, Gottfried Svartholm Warg was too ill to attend the trial and will be sentenced when he is well. With the reduced sentences the court also increased the monetary judgement from 30 million kroner to 46 million kroner (US $6.4 million).

The International Federation for the Phonographic Industry issued a statement saying:

Today's judgment confirms the illegality of The Pirate Bay and the seriousness of the crimes of those involved. It is now time for The Pirate Bay, whose operators have twice been convicted in court, to close. We now look to governments and ISPs to take note of this judgment, do the responsible thing and take the necessary steps to get The Pirate Bay shut down.

[BBC News]