UK Police Launch Campaign To Shut Down Torrent Sites 244
An anonymous reader writes "City of London Police inform TorrentFreak that they have begun targeting sites that provide access to unauthorized content for 'criminal gain.' The initiative is part of a collaboration with Hollywood studios represented by FACT and the major recording labels of the BPI. In letters being sent out now, police accuse site operators of committing offenses under the Serious Crime Act. The National Fraud Intelligence Bureau further warns that the crimes carry a jail sentence of 10 years."
What are they trying to achieve? (Score:5, Insightful)
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I have 2 billion people in mind who done give a hoot about copyright: All of india, and all of china. So thats 2 billion holes to plug. Its hilarious too, with the great red firewall, that piles of copyrighted software and content pours out of there.
Get real, RIAA, MPAA and whatever other rackets exist to try and create and use police state to shake down small timers.
Re:What are they trying to achieve? (Score:5, Insightful)
When police put overt effort in to enforcing a specific law then you have to ask the question why?
They should be enforcing all laws equally, not picking on some and neglecting others.
Re:What are they trying to achieve? (Score:5, Insightful)
The [British Recorded Music Industry] say that an [National Fraud Intelligence Bureau] officer was previously embedded with their anti-piracy unit.
âoeThis appointment is the first secondment by NFIB into private industry, enabling City of London Police to develop a greater understanding of the illegal distribution and sale of music online by organised crime gangs,â the music group reveals.
They seem to be equating torrent sites with organized crime.
For some reason I'm skeptical of that categorization.
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Official bodies in UK often act as if they think industry associations are lily-white, now it seems to be a police force doing that too.
The concept of abusive and overreaching claims may be too complicated for Mr Plod to grasp. Maybe he should be invited to see it in its true colours as a kind of conspiracy to commit offences of unlawful harassment and intimidation on the public.
(And someone should caution him against becoming an accessory to those offences himself). It's a tragedy if a potentially respecta
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They seem to be equating torrent sites with organized crime.
For some reason I'm skeptical of that categorization.
Some torrent sites make large amounts of money. They encourage paid hit-and-runners (VIP accounts) by the thousands, as well as regularly solicit for donations rewardedwith a star icon. They also sell slots on seedboxes. This isn't casual sharing, it's profit based on copyright infringement.
Re:What are they trying to achieve? (Score:5, Insightful)
No need for conspiracy theories. This is a tool commonly used by police, particularly for traffic offences. It is meant to serve as a reminder that some offences are illegal and that the police can pursue them. (And they do pursue them on a regular basis, though not necessarily to the same degree because they have limited resources.)
I don't really agree with this method of law enforcement, but I can certainly understand why they use it.
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Re:What are they trying to achieve? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a possible conspiracy though.
The government (Cons) want to pass through the so-called "snoopers charter" to make note of all of our emails and web traffic. The LibDems and a few others have blocked this so far, but we've recently had a murder case (April Jones: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-22781411 [bbc.co.uk]) during which it was found that the killer had had child porn on his computer. There are now the requisite "block child porn from the internet" calls, as you'd expect (including the NSPCC saying there's a link between looking at kiddie porn and going out and harming children). Further, John Carr, the government's Internet advisor has said Google et. al should be logging actual humans to searches (not just IPs or pseudonyms) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22726004) - side comment: I should imagine Google is probably the worst place to find 'hard' porn of any kind, let alone kiddie porn, so this seems deeply flawed, regardless of your stance on such things).
So... the conspiracy here is that the government has pressured the police to have a bit of a crack down. When the police find it difficult, they too can join in the cries for "we need more monitoring on the internet, because otherwise crime fighting is hard". That'll bring the police in line with MI5, the Culture Secretary and the child-porn fighting public who are asking for action. Then, the government can re-propose it's draconian measures, and we'll all accept them because we don't want to be paedophiles.
I'll give it a month before the chief of police says something like "I wish we had more powers to monitor people's internet usage".
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Which is a red herring of an argument. Who says they are putting overt effort into enforcing one law and neglecting others?
The police's resources, like anything else, are finite. They cannot concentrate on all crime, all the time. So initiatives like this, across all laws, are not uncommon. The hope is that the publicity and focussed effort staves off similar crime for a while.
Re:What are they trying to achieve? (Score:5, Insightful)
But let's face it... They aren't really putting overt effort. They're just focusing on what they think is low-hanging fruit, like traffic offenses.
Re:What are they trying to achieve? (Score:5, Insightful)
The simple fact that they are using taxpayer money on silly victim-less crimes like this instead of more serious ones such as rape/murder. That fact says that they are "putting overt effort into enforcing one law and neglecting others".
But let's face it... They aren't really putting overt effort. They're just focusing on what they think is low-hanging fruit, like traffic offenses.
These are not victimless crimes. The victims are just huge multinational conglomerates that you do not give a crap about (I am not sure I do either to be honest). In this case though the the victims have lots of money and are constantly whining to the police and politicians about the crimes perpetrated against them. The police need to be seen to be doing something.
Also, it is worth remembering that the UK record industry does have a lot of employees and is one of the few things we actually export nowadays so it is no surprise that politicians wish to protect it from any perceived harm.
Finally, you need to remember that the vast majority of the UK voting population do not necessarily give a crap about repealing copyright law or whatever. The care more about our economy. I actually think if we had a referendum tomorrow about copyright law it would come out as a majority in favour of strengthening it thanks to all the old people voting, even though you and all your friends would disagree.
Re:What are they trying to achieve? (Score:4, Interesting)
The potential victims are just huge multinational conglomerates that many people do not give a crap about. Whether or not any actual harm occurred is an entirely different conversation.
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Re: What are they trying to achieve? (Score:4, Interesting)
"Victimless?"
Tell that to the families of, oh, i dunno, pick an niche industry.. Makers of add ons for microsoft flight simulator. Their industry was basically wiped out by piracy despite a clear huge demand for their high quality products. Why should the police protect say a jewelry shop that was robbed but not them?
Not even a good try at re-writing history. Most small tool vendors for "Windows" have been put out of business by Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Cisco, etc... and not by piracy. The anti-trust suits can show how absolutely false your assertion is, though you probably won't let facts get in to the way of your bullshit.
Average users used to pay very well for PK-Zip, Cybersitter, NetNanny, Disk compression tools, Encryption tools, etc... Each of those was put under by massive corporations (disclaimer: Cybersitter is still around, but no longer a dominant company in web content control). Once those were squashed by big corporations and their integrated yet limited versions of the same thing, people no longer spent the money.
Look, nobody here should be a moron. Everyone would agree that real piracy happens, but what is real piracy? You getting a copy of a movie/TV Show from a friend on a recommendation would probably be the most common. At least half of those cases are a result of a movie/TV show not being available by the producers. The same could be said with songs. People don't want to purchase a full CD for 15 bucks when they only like 1 song on the record, and yet they can't just buy 1 song because the artist hates iTunes or want's more money than the one song's value.
Computer software is often pirated because people don't trust games to be good. Office and productivity apps may be needed to open 1 file or perform 1 task, where a user sees no value in spending hundreds of dollars on a full application. It could be to learn what an app is, or if they really want to purchase it when there are no trials available.
In the end, most of the people using things end up purchasing if they really like the product (which includes movies, songs, and software).
It's a very tiny portion of pirating that actually damages people. Those things have been around as well, and are prosecuted. I guess you never heard of Rusty and Eddies BBS? I doubt anyone would complain about places like that being taken down and taken to court. Those places are not the financially strapped single mom's being taken to court by the RIAA/MPAA are they? It's the latter that people take offense too, which causes them to not care about the RIAA/MPAA.
You can either believe your fantasy, or check just a few goddamn facts before spouting off. Of course you posted as AC (big surprise) so don't care about facts. "Just Shillin" right?
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Fuck them and the horse they rode in on, get with the times or die you old bastards.
Unfortunately the old generation are not dieing quick enough to make changing the law to cope with new technologies possible yet. They will most likely carry on voting for parties to get in and strengthen copyright law for many decades to come, however futile you may think it is.
Re:What are they trying to achieve? (Score:4, Interesting)
All of them. There are some exceptions with utilities (e.g. local water company) but even those are less exceptional than the video industry thinks they are.
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No, my scorn should be directed at everyone involved in this process. It's rather disgusting that they're seriously wasting tax dollars trying to stop people from copying certain data.
Would you agree if I hacked your home PC and copied all the data I found on there?
Just because something can be copied without incurring a cost does not make it any less valuable.
define "serious" (Score:3)
what exactly is a serious crime?
Re:define "serious" (Score:4, Insightful)
Things which need media attention.
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what exactly is a serious crime?
Whatever the governments says it is. They're the ones with the guns, remember?
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Specially it's the parliament, which is elected by the people.
Re:define "serious" (Score:5, Insightful)
Specially it's the parliament, which is elected by the people.
I wonder what percentage of the British population believes that Parliament is representing their interests well and voting with those concerns in mind? Here in the United States, only 11% of the population approves of the job that Congress is doing. That's a lot of unhappy people. What is the approval rating of Parliament? I'd be surprised if it's much higher.
Re:define "serious" (Score:5, Informative)
Such data is gathered by the YouGov surveys, which happen very regularly. Here's the latest report [cloudfront.net]. Unsurprisingly given the sort of policies associated with the coalition government, the approval rating of Parliament splits strongly down party lines. Overall the government is unpopular with a 25% approval rating, 61% disapproval and 14% don't know. However this average disguises the fact that amongst conservative voters approval is 75% and amongst Labour voters approval is only 5%.
These sorts of figures are what you might expect from the UK. The situation is not comparable to the USA where the approval rating of Congress reflects a more deep rooted feeling that corruption is rampant and all the parties are fundamentally the same. This can be seen in the fact that disapproval of Congress is almost identical regardless of voting intention [gallup.com]. The problems in the UK reflect a strong north/south division every bit as strong as the city/rural division in the USA, where the richer and more conservative south tends to approval of austerity due to a less systematic dependence on welfare and public sector jobs. The post-industrial north is dominated by Labour voters who never made the transition to the service/knowledge economy and where quality of life is highly dependent on government spending.
I don't have time to find more precise stats, but I suspect if you examined UK voters beliefs more closely, people would not feel that democracy itself was particularly broken. Especially not over something as trivial as piracy - only in places like Slashdot and amongst the people who read it does piracy become some kind of moral imperative. Everyone else I know treats it as a naughty pleasure. They know they're breaking the law and won't get caught, but they don't have any desire to make a big moral campaign of it.
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It is, but are you denying its truth?
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Re:define "serious" (Score:4)
what exactly is a serious crime?
A never-kidding never-laughing one?
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[W]hat exactly is a serious crime?
A crime* which takes place over the Internet; the "Serious Crime Act" is the UK equivalent of what we Yanks might call a "Cyber Crime Bill," but the Brits, in naming this law, have acknowledged that the Internet is serious fucking business.
* Sometimes even a non-crime can become a "serious crime" by virtue of it having occurred over the Internet; for example: Borrowing somebody's CD AFK? Not a crime. Borrowing bits from somebody's CD over the Internet? "Serious crime."
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Except in your examples, the second one isn't at all "borrowing". That's you trying to equate it to something it isn't so you can downplay it, in the same manner as those that call it stealing in order to up play it.
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Serious crime is laundering drug cartel money through the City of London (as has been recently proved), but the City of London police don't want to police it's square mile. Money talks, and the bankers have bought all the "justice" they want.
Re:define "serious" (Score:4, Funny)
It's about volume, right? That music is criminally loud.
Also terrible fucking puns.
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Re:define "serious" (Score:4, Interesting)
If the studios really wanted that profit then why don't they distribute it online for free in a ad supported fashion (just like they do/did with traditional television) themselves?
the networks could make lots of money with ad supported "official legal" torrent site and set it up like any other torrent site (just less porn ads and more normal ads) with every episode available in multiple resolutions drm free and in every imaginable format, hell they could even embed ads in the episode like the do with tv. they would say "oh but people block ads with adblockers but then again so do viewers with tivo or other time delay setups. it would cost them less bandwidth than trying to stream every every episode to everyone and their dog separately, they would not have to license any drm they, they could have links to where you could buy the the physical disks and merchandise, they could quickly and accurately judge popularity of shows based on number of people torrenting it. they would argue that others would simply copy their torrent remove ads and redistribute them but they have problem as is anyway.
but they would rather prosecute other people then sell goods the way masses want them in the vain hope that they will somehow get back to the glory days of pre-internet.
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TV shows get funding up front from the network so they can pay the staff, the actors, the companies doing their special effects etc. To get the funding they have to agree to be exclusive to that network for a while, before going out on DVD, to other countries and into syndication.
With BitTorrent there is no up front funding. Maybe they could convince a bank or some investors to give them the cash, but TV is so hit-and-miss it could be a hard sell. I wish they would though because networks seem to cancel abo
Re:define "serious" (Score:4, Insightful)
Because Hollywood has finally sunk to the point where there is nothing new worth downloading. I just looked over the DVD release date schedule for the rest of the summer and could not find I single movie coming out I would be willing to watch, much less go to the trouble of downloading.
wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah giving them the same sentence as a rapist. That seems reasonable. This shit should be a civil matter not criminal.
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How many times did he die?
So what now? (Score:4, Interesting)
Are magnet links a crime?
Are they only criminal if I have advertising alongside them?
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The links are probably no, but the act of creating and using them could be if it's done maliciously.
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The links are probably no, but the act of creating and using them could be if it's done maliciously.
Creating and distributing a shareware torrent with no crack or serial, for example.
Re:So what now? (Score:5, Informative)
Copyright infringement is only criminal if done on a commercial scale. In other words you have to be making a significant profit from it.
That's how the BPI tricked the police into raiding the owner of Oink's Pink Palace. They claimed he was charging for access and raking in the cash, but it was shown in court that he only accepted donations to cover the cost of running the site. The case collapsed, wasting vast sums of public money and police time but at least the BPI got some free publicity.
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Improper use of police powers and public funds (Score:5, Insightful)
I am still uncomfortable with the fact that this action is yet another example where the police, who are publicly funded and granted extensive powers in pursuit of their public duty, are essentially (mis)using their powers to protect the private property rights of a select few, i.e. copyright owners.
Copyright owners who, incidentally, are rich enough to pursue their own civil action against alleged pirates. Then again, making the public pay is better for their bottom line.
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A big chunk of law + law enforcement has always been about defining property rights and protecting the interests of the 'haves'.
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Well, originally the task of the people that are now calling themselves "Police" was to beat the subjects of the ruling class into submission whenever they developed independent ideas. Sometimes also just for fun. Seems to me the UK police wants to get back to that good old time, at least on the Internet.
Here is an idea: Why don't they create an UK national Internet with no connection to the rest of the world. And while they are at it, maybe a wall and some minefields around the country?
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"Well, originally the task of the people that are now calling themselves "Police" was to beat the subjects of the ruling class into submission whenever they developed independent ideas. Sometimes also just for fun."
Not true in the slightest in the UK. The British police force was developed under the idea of policing by consent, that the police can police only with the consent of the citizenship because the citizens want a force to deal with murder and so forth, but not to beat them down.
This isn't about goi
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Copyright owners are hardly the "select few". Millions of people own copyrights and (attempt to) make money off them. Which is, whether you like it or not, an ability the law attempts to provide.
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Copyright owners are hardly the "select few".
If we're talking about people who have 'important' copyrights, then they are indeed few in number. You don't think this is for the small copyright holders, do you?
Re:Improper use of police powers and public funds (Score:5, Informative)
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I am still uncomfortable with the fact that this action is yet another example where the police, who are publicly funded and granted extensive powers in pursuit of their public duty, are essentially (mis)using their powers to protect the private property rights of a select few, i.e. copyright owners.
Copyright owners who, incidentally, are rich enough to pursue their own civil action against alleged pirates. Then again, making the public pay is better for their bottom line.
Although the "temporary" government-granted distribution monopolies are owned by private entities, the imaginary property itself belongs to the public. I agree with you, though, as perpetual copyright itself is more than enough of a giveaway from the public to corporate coffers. I wanted to clarify the distinction though, as I get the feeling that some people may be losing sight of the fact that imaginary property is a part of the commons — likely, I believe, in part due to the multi-generational span
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Or maybe it is the case that the police can work on multiple fronts at the same time. This is probably handled by a special work group within the police, not something that every police officer is involved with.
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So vote on someone that represents you in the next election. That's how a democracy works.
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Not our democracy. There are only two parties capable of getting into power. Both of them are pretty bad so people tend to vote for the one they think will do the least damage. Voting for anyone else is just pissing your vote away, it won't even be counted towards the national numbers.
We had an opportunity to change the system to something fairer, but in a referendum people rejected it. The most cited reason was that it was seen as "too complex" and "people wouldn't understand it", so basically people felt
Re:Improper use of police powers and public funds (Score:5, Informative)
In short, the area has very few (under 10,000) actual residents. It's right in the centre of London. It's almost all businesses. It's the only borough in the UK where businesses representatives can vote in local elections, and the business reps outnumber the residents by a massive margin. It's a borough that's run in the interests of businesses, not in the interests of residents. It's why this is happening there - the Police in other areas of the country have other things to worry about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London [wikipedia.org]
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It looks like they are trying to stop and prevent crime.
Right, the copying of certain data. Can't have the rich's government-enforced monopolies put in jeopardy, now can we? This is almost as serious as a child opening a lemonade stand without a permit!
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UK police are ignoring real crime.
You do realise that the City of London police force is a tiny force that isn't even representative of London police (which is the Metropolitan Police) let alone the UK police.
City of London police is a tiny force that occupies one square mile and about 10,000 residents in a much larger urban area of around 8 million.
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Those are laws and law enforcement being used to protect the private property rights of a select few.
It might be the case that theft is uncommon, but almost everyone owns private property. Am I seriously supposed to care that someone's government-enforced monopoly is tumbling down?
After all, victims of theft should simply pursue their own civil action against the alleged thieves.
Unfortunately for you, government-enforced monopolies created in an effort to ensure artificial scarcity don't resemble real property at all, so this whole example is rather ridiculous to begin with.
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Foreign multi-nationals that pay taxes on their earnings?
Rarer than hens teeth over here.
What we need to do is serve serious crime notices to the Copyright Cartel. Once we have a proper free market in copyrighted content we can take the money we save and spend it on something useful. Like hospitals or a police force that can afford to pursue real crime.
Here's the proof that copyright law is insane (Score:5, Insightful)
police accuse site operators of committing offenses under the Serious Crime Act
When sharing information about shifting bits of data across a computer network is considered a serious crime, the corruption in the system is not only obvious but blatantly so.
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The crime is not about shifting bits, it's about illegally copying works of others.
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Not sure, but it sure isn't OK for them to do so.
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Which if done maliciously, for example with the purpose of unauthorized sharing of copyrighted works, is illegal. The technical details involving flipping bits is not important. It's the intent that matters.
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Please, stop this nonsense car analogies. Piracy is about exchanging bits, in other words, information. If you want to control that (information exchange btw people), you instantly become the most totalitarian regime that ever saw the light of day on earth in all known history. And it won't work.
The bottom line is: Nobody will ever stop piracy because it is allowed by the most basic of our privacy expectations, and every step going in the direction of stopping piracy will have exactly one effect: reduce lib
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By contrast, you can't even be remotely effectively at reducing the sharing of copyrighted files. Everyone has a networked computer, which is a copying and distributing machine, and those machines by their very na
If the tables were turned (Score:5, Interesting)
Even though neither site is located in the UK, police believe that sites’ operators are committing crimes there.
Wonder how the UK police would feel if China, Iran, or North Korea accused them of commiting crimes against them... even though theyre in the UK
City of London - Corporate Haven (Score:5, Interesting)
watch this and you'll understand why this is nothing more than monied interests trying to protect their own. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc [youtube.com]
City of London - Police NO GO area (Score:2)
City of London is a private police force (Score:2, Informative)
The 'City of London' police, is actually a special private police force responsible for the 'City' part of London which is the small financial district. It works for the City of London corporation, the private company that controls that part of London (for historical reasons a private company controls that part of London). It can be hired, quite literally you pay them money and they'll enforce the 'law':
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London_Police
http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/services/crime-and-commu
Re:City of London is a private police force (Score:5, Insightful)
Linking is not (yet) illegal in UK, no matter what these tosspots say. Also, they are misrepresenting themselves as those in a position of authority. So, in response, I suggest the reply given in Arkell v. Pressdram.
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Very good information. Thank you. I'd no idea City of London was a biz not a gov't unit.
10 Years? (Score:5, Insightful)
Police privatization (Score:3)
Seems about right as the police forces in the UK are slowly being privatized. I understand some already are and have been for a while.
When they are privatized then they need to focus on their shareholders interests first.... wonder how much stake groups like the BPI and others will have in such forces?
Re:Police privatization (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes---the police have been going under privatisation, and this is not a good thing.
However, the City of London police, and the Corporation of London (aand its polive force) are not good places to look as indicitave of the whole. The Corporation is a very odd beast: for a start, it's older than a unified England and it's charter has been lost (but that's OK, since it was given another charter in 1067).
It's always been semi-private and not really part of the government.
I call bullsh*t! (Score:2)
“XXXXX is a BitTorrent website that – without the permission of the copyright holder – actively provides UK internet users with a bespoke directory and search engine for torrent files. This enables users to find and download copyright content which would otherwise be time consuming or impossible to locate,” the letter notes.
Google? - Search for the name of the show/movie and you'll find the name of the related torrent within the top 10 results. Then search for that specifically and you'll find the direct links to both bitlocker downloads and torrents. Not time consuming. Not impossible. Not at all. Extremely easy actually.
This isn't how capitalism works. (Score:2)
Your tax pounds at work (Score:3)
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Threatening behaviour much? (Score:2)
I want to shut down torrent sites too (Score:2)
Searching would be the trickiest part
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there still irc file sharing bots around? i know nntp was still widely used but though most irc filesharing had died
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The file itself is not illegal, but using it in an illegal manner is. Carrying a hammer is also not illegal, but using it in an illegal manner is.
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It can be illegal to just carry a hammer. If it is considered a tool for housebreaking, walking around with it is illegal.
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Not true. The file is illegal now. Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003, section 296ZG.
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People obviously want it since they pirate it, it's just that they are too cheap to pay for it.