Blackout Ireland – Irish Internet Censorship

Posted by: Sean | Posted on: March 5th, 2009 | 0 Comments

Irelands biggest ISP (Internet Service Provider) Eircom is been forced to begin blocking websites. The IRMA (Irish Recorded Music Association) has decided that if they get Irelands biggest ISP on board with blocking sites then soon all the others will follow. IRMA say that by blocking sites such as 'The Pirate Bay' and 'Isohunt' that it will help to combat piracy. When in actual fact it will most likely cause more interest and people will soon find another way around the blocks that there ISP impose on them.

'The Pirate Bay' over the last few weeks have been in court over this topic, they are been accused of hosting files that are copyrighted, however they are just linking to this content, the files themselves are not been hosted on there servers. If another site decides to link to one single file of copyrighted content does this mean that that site should be blocked also? If your ISP decided to block websites where will it end? It would start to raise questions on why other sites arent been blocked, why should your ISP have the right to decide what you can or cannot view.

The IRMA are only concerned with potential profits that they are losing out on, instead they should be coming up with better ideas on how they can make there content more widely available, i think that the iTunes Store was a great success, by allowing people to buy music cheaper than they can buy it in there local shop, and most recently they have removed the DRM (Digital Rights Management) from there songs, this will allows people who buy a song to easily copy it to all of there computers and not just the 3 that Apple used to offer. Although Apple may be removing the DRM it is said that when people buy a song they could easily distribute that song illegally, this is why Apple have introduced a new 3 tier pricing scheme which allows the record companies to choose one of 3 prices for there songs,more on this topic can be found here.

For the next week the people of Ireland are being asked to place the above image as there profile picture or to put the picture on any site that they currently use often, this is being done as a protest that will show how many people simply will not stand for having there freedom of online browsing censored.

Censorship is not a solution. It is avoiding the issue. It does not pay artists for their work

To find out more on what you can do to take part in Blackout Ireland visit: www.blackoutireland.com before your ISP removes that site too!