Free Talk Live

A drop in file-sharing following a court ordered block of the Pirate Bay was short-lived, data seen by the BBC suggests. A major UK internet service provider (ISP) said peer-to-peer (P2P) activity on its network returned to just below normal only a week after the measures were enforced earlier this year. Critics had warned the ban would prove ineffective. But the BPI, the music industry trade body, has defended the action. Its chief executive Geoff Taylor told the BBC the group would continue to pursue similar action in future.

Last October the Amsterdam Court ruled that three former Pirate Bay operators had to remove a list of ‘infringing’ torrents from the website and block access to Dutch users. The Pirate Bay trio had to comply with the Court’s demands before today, but nothing has changed and it’s unlikely that the Dutch will be shut out of the site in the near future.

This Friday, it became known that the Swedish Police Board will shut down The Pirate Bay, the popular file sharing site, by classifying it as a child pornography site in the blocklist that Swedish Internet Providers respect. Some time next week, an update to the blacklist will include The Pirate Bay.

The Swedish Pirate Party, who are at the forefront of anti-copyright lobbying in Sweden, are planning to shake up the country’s ISP market. After taking over the supply of bandwidth to The Pirate Bay, Piratpartiet will now partner in the launch of Pirate ISP, a new broadband service that will offer anonymity to customers and provide financial support to the Party.

Conservative British lawmakers want Internet service providers to automatically block customers' access to pornography websites.Designed to protect young children from accessing mature content, a block on porn would require customers to "opt in" (request access) to illicit websites, British communications minister Ed Vaizey told The Sunday Times.

Earlier this year, after months of legal wrangling, authorities in a number of countries won an injunction against the Pirate Bay, probably the largest and most famous BitTorrent piracy site on the Web. The order blocked people from entering the site.

In retaliation, the Pirate Bay wrapped up the code that runs its entire Web site, and offered it as a free downloadable file for anyone to copy and install on their own servers. People began setting up hundreds of new versions of the site, and the piracy continues unabated.

Thus, whacking one big mole created hundreds of smaller ones.

David Cameron, the British prime minister, has said that the authorities should consider blocking individuals' access to social media if they are plotting violent acts, in the wake of the week's riots and looting.

Internet service providers are to be asked by the government to tighten up on website pornography to try to combat the early sexualisation of children.

Ministers believe broadband providers should consider automatically blocking sex sites, with individuals being required to opt in to receive them, rather than opt out and use the available computer parental controls.

Paddy Roy Bates, the de facto ruler of Sealand, has died at the age of 90. Born in 1921, he joined the British Army at the outbreak of World War II. After the war he had a chain of butcher shops and was an estate agent; in the mid-1960s, he was involved in pirate radio. In 1967, he took over Rough Towers (an abandoned British fort in the North Sea) and rechristened it the Principality of Sealand, declaring independence from the UK. Many adventures followed, including run-ins with the British government and terrorist attacks. Bates passed away after suffering from Alzheimer's for several years.