Monday, June 17, 2013

Pirate bay to be blocked in Ireland

  On Wednesday the 12th of June 2013 SIX IRISH INTERNET service providers have been ordered by the High Court to block access to The Pirate Bay website. Justice Brian McGovern issued an order which had been drafted by music publishers EMI, Sony, Universal Music and Warner Music in collaboration with the six internet providers. The order will apply not only to any current incarnation of The Pirate Bay, but any other address at which the service becomes available in future according to Journal.ie
  The Irish independent reported that UP to 20 internet sites are to be targeted by an organisation representing record companies in a move to stamp out the illegal pirating of music and other copyright material.
  EMI, Sony, Warner Music and Universal had alleged the Pirate Bay activities were causing them €20m in losses annually and sought the orders against UPC, Imagine, Vodafone, Digiweb, Hutchison 3G Ltd and Telefonica O2 Ireland Ltd.
  €20 million? So basically they are saying that if Pirate bay is blocked, there will be 2 million more albums sold in Ireland? How on earth do they get away with these figures?
   Here is my two cents worth on the subject. First of all this imaginary €20 million, lets just say that it would be true, that in Ireland last year Pirate bay took away €20 million worth of album sales. I will use some U.S. Statistics here to compare as I do not have the exact Irish figures. In USA 2012 the independent labels had a record braking year by getting a whopping 32.6% of the market share, according to The Nielsen Company & Billboard's 2012 Music Industry Report. There are some quite large Independent Labels in USA, so I would hazard a guess that In Ireland the major label share is bigger, but that's just my guess. So anyway, according to this information next year the Irish independent record labels would make extra 6.5 million thanks to this court ruling? Now does any one seriously believe this? If so, we're all on for a great year ;-) Personally I have my doubts... 
   Second thing here is much more important to me. So now the Irish government and the high court decides what websites we can access? Now don't take me for a fool, I'm sure there has been certain level of censorship happening all along (just my suspicion , not a proven fact), but now it is official that Irish government will openly do this. And especially when big corporate companies Like the above mentioned major labels pushes them... What happened to freedom of information? I for one am furious!!!