Newzbin Dumps .COM, Promises VPN & Cyberlocker Services. Newzbin2, the site chosen by Hollywood to be their UK web-blocking guinea-pig, has revealed some of their forward plans. Within weeks the Usenet indexing site will not only dump its .COM domain, but also look towards the creation of both VPN and cyberlocker services. Last October, the High Court in London handed down a judgment to BT, one of the UK’s largest Internet service providers. The injunction – the first of its type in UK history – ordered BT to block subscriber access to Usenet indexing site Newzbin2 on copyright grounds. Although Newzbin2 anticipated the result and had already prepared circumvention software to enable BT users to carry on using the site, it still has a key vulnerability – its US-seizable .COM domain. According to the site’s operators, that weakness is now being addressed. “Newzbin is leaving the American Internet. In a couple of weeks we will cease to use the newzbin.com domain and move to newzbin2.es,” says the site’s Mr White.
Stop SOPA Ireland | Protect the Irish Internet. Copyright law should help rather than hinder Ireland - The Irish Times - Fri, Jan 27. Sorry, we can’t find what you’re looking for Take a look at our recently published stories instead Fingal refuse planning permission for padel courts at Swords Pavilion Scheme would interfere with Metrolink project, council finds Tue Mar 31 2026 - 14:55 Trump says ‘France has been very unhelpful’; four injured during drone attack on Dubai The latest live updates as the war in the Middle East continues Tue Mar 31 2026 - 14:53 Geoff Parling’s TV spat with Craig Doyle symbolises the tug of war for rugby’s modern soul Pre-game incident has gone viral online and plays directly into broader debate of how the sport wants to be perceived Tue Mar 31 2026 - 14:48 Leinster confirm RG Snyman is out for the season after rupturing ACL Irish province could be light in secondrow players as James Ryan will be assessed later in the week for injury Tue Mar 31 2026 - 14:37 Trump faces a decision on whether to start a ground war in Iran Tue Mar 31 2026 - 14:14 Revenues rise $13bn to $222.3bn Tue Mar 31 2026 - 14:11.
McGarr Solicitors – Dublin Solicitors Ireland | Making the SOPA Sausages. Bismark reputedly said that nobody should get too close to the making of laws or sausages. On Thursday, on behalf of the StopSOPAIreland.com campaign, I took a trip to Leinster House, to catch a glimpse of the sausage machine at work. Together with Ian Bergin, who runs the Facebook campaign, and TJ McIntyre of DRI, I met with Catherine Murphy TD to discuss her scheduled exchange of questions with Minister Sherlock. We experienced the minute-by-minute changes of timetables and proposals in relation to the disputed Ministerial Order. We had originally believed that there would be a full debate that day on the matter. Instead, on arrival, we learned that instead there was to be a tightly structured 8 minute exchange of statements between Derek Keating for FG and Catherine Murphy for the Technical Group of Independents. To put it at its lowest, this didn’t really seem to meet the needs of the situation.
Nonetheless, there was still the possibility being held out of a further, fuller debate. Calm Reasoned Dialogue Helps - Blacknight Blog. The last week or so has been “interesting” to say the least. (Last time round it was only a couple of days. …. now it’s stretched to a week) It’s also been incredibly busy, which is why I’m only getting round to posting this now and even now I doubt that anything I post will be that coherent, but I’ll give it a go.. Over the past week or so myself, TJ McIntyre, Simon McGarr, Ian Bergin (and many others) have probably spoken to just about every single media outlet in the country. The discussion and debate surrounding copyright, digital rights has gone from being a minor interest to something that mainstream media are paying attention to. It’s been wonderful to see over 70 thousand people sign the petition over on StopSOPAIreland.com.
It’s been depressing to see some of the stupid and profane insults being directed at an elected representative on Twitter and elsewhere. So let’s look at the positives, the negatives and possible future actions. They also have another major advantage – unity. ‘SOPA’ Law: Catherine Murphy and Stephen Donnelly present alternative Statutory Instrument to Minister Sherlock | Catherine Murphy TD. Press Release | 31st January 2012 The Deputies called upon the Minister to enact the balanced measures at first opportunity and to follow with primary legislation. Independent Deputies Catherine Murphy (Kildare North) and Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow-East Carlow) today presented Minister Seán Sherlock with a draft of an alternative Statutory Instrument which they believe clearly restates the position of European Copyright law in Ireland while also explicitly protecting some key basic online freedoms as laid out in the Scarlet v SABAM ruling of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) last November.
The deputies, speaking ahead of a scheduled debate this evening on the subject, expressed their confidence that the wording would enable the Minister to meet his stated objective of fully transposing Directive 2001/29/EC into Irish law. They expressed their thanks to TJ McIntyre and Simon McGarr for their expertise and support on the matter. Ireland’s SOPA: no reprieve - SI not going back out for consultation. Last-minute hopes for a controversial statutory instrument dubbed Ireland’s SOPA going back out to the public for consultation have been dashed. The instrument is due to be signed shortly. Rumours had emerged that the considerable furor surrounding the change to the Copyright Act 2000 that led to more than 80,000 people signing a Stop SOPA Ireland petition and 1,300 people pledging to visit their TDs on the matter had brought about a last-minute change of heart.
Sources suggested that a decision to put the legislative change back out for public consultation was due to be announced by Minister Sean Sherlock later today. However, a spokesperson for Sherlock's office at the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation said this was not the case. She said the statutory instrument was issued to the Cabinet last night; a mere formality because it appeared in Dail business last week. But the battle does not end there. John Kennedy. Lonely ISP Wants Other Providers To Disconnect Pirates. Having originally resisted the notion that it should stop its subscribers sharing copyright works, in a little under 4 years Ireland's ISP Eircom has come completely about-face. Not only did it come to a private agreement with the music industry to implement a 3 strikes-style regime, but now its asking other ISPs to join them in doing so.
It's lonely being this kind of 'pioneer', especially when it puts your company at a commercial disadvantage. In 2008, the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) took legal action against Eircom, Ireland’s largest ISP. The so-called Big Four labels – EMI, Sony, Universal and Warner – wanted the ISP to install proactive filtering technology aimed at stopping unauthorized file-sharing among Eircom’s customers. At the 11th hour in February 2009 the companies came to an agreement which would see Eircom introduce a graduated response system for dealing with errant subscribers. However, Eircom needed something in return. Wording of ‘SOPA Ireland’ legislation will NOT be changed – Sherlock.
Minister Seán Sherlock Image: Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland MINISTER SEÁN SHERLOCK has insisted that the wording of the controversial statutory instrument reinforcing online copyright laws will not be changed. Facing down criticism from opposition and independent TDs in a Dáil debate on the issue, Sherlock confirmed that the measure – dubbed ‘SOPA Ireland’ by opponents – would go ahead as planned. He said the Government was “not trying to impose something here” and that comparisons with the SOPA legislation in the US were “not based in fact”, adding that the SI was merely a measure to make sure Ireland is compliant with EU law. The instrument will make it possible for copyright holders to seek court injunctions against companies whose systems are hosting copyright-infringing material – for example ISPs and social media sites.
As it happened: The Dáil debate on the ‘Irish SOPA’> Already a fan? The Lawyer Behind The Stop Sopa Ireland Campaign Writes. Last week I was invited to attend a panel discussion on the new SOPAIreland Copyright Law, tomorrow in the Science Gallery [Dublin]. It was a small panel – Minister Sean Sherlock (above), Paul Durrant representing Ireland’s ISPs, Tom Murphy from Boards.ie representing intermediaries and me.
Last Thursday I got a lunchtime phone call from the event organiser. He told me he’d just got off the phone from speaking to the Minister’s office. The Minister had wanted him to know that unless I was uninvited, he would cancel. A diary clash would arise, was how it was put, I was told. I agreed to be uninvited. I have nothing but sympathy for the organiser, who is trying to do something valuable for his developer community. The event is on tomorrow at lunch time (free tickets too) but in my eyes it will represent an opportunity lost. Both Minister Sherlock and his FF predecessors like to talk about copyright being a balancing act between “two sides”.
Money talks, everyone knows that. More here. Episode 20: The dirty business of cleaning the Cloud with SOPA. SOPA has become the pariah term for the Internet in recent weeks. In the US, mass lobbying from internet users made it more undesirable than a fart in a spacesuit, & that is saying something. However, the day after the January 18th protests, MegaUpload was taken down by the FBI, citing fraud, money laundering, racketeering, & its founders arrested in New Zealand, pending extradition to the US to face those charges.
Over a week later, the FBI is seeking to confiscate all MegaUpload data that was held on US based servers, whether legitimate or not, & the owners of legitimate data have little to no indication if or even when they will have their property returned to them. That 'gap' in legislation was due to be plugged last week, were it not for a steam-train of lobbying by Irish Internet users in the 'Stop SOPA Ireland' campaign, which raised the alarm to industry, & internet users alike. There is a very real threat out there to the Internet & cloud computing. Hackers target Government websites. Thursday 26 January 2012 11.42 The Department of Justice and the Department of Finance websites were both taken offline for a time in the early hours of this morning following an apparent cyber attack.
Both websites were down for around an hour after being targeted with a denial of service attack. Such attacks often see a website's servers overloaded with huge numbers of simple requests, which brings the website down. In a statement, the Department of Justice website said it experienced a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack. This is not an attempt to extract information from the website but is instead an attempt to stop access to a service. It said: "There seems to be no damage done to the website, however a review is being conducted this morning. "The Government is aware of the potential threat of this type of cyber attack and the Department of Communications is co-ordinating a whole of Government response to this threat. " Viewpoint: V for Vendetta and the rise of Anonymous. 9 February 2012Last updated at 20:03 ET By Alan Moore Author On Saturday protests are planned across the world against Acta - the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.
The treaty has become the focus of activists associated with the Anonymous hacking network because of concerns that it could undermine internet privacy and aid censorship. First published in 1982, the comic series V for Vendetta charted a masked vigilante's attempt to bring down a fascist British government and its complicit media. Many of the demonstrators are expected to wear masks based on the book's central character. Ahead of the protests, the BBC asked V for Vendetta's writer, Alan Moore, for his thoughts on how his creation had become an inspiration and identity to Anonymous. Rushton Triangular Lodge appears in Mr Moore's novel Voice of the Fire It would seem likely that the treatment afforded to the elder Tresham played some part in the general mix of grievances from which the reckless scheme ignited. Mastermind Neglect.
Post SOPA, What Else Is Out There? By John Walker on January 25th, 2012 at 2:03 pm. Post SOPA might be slightly wishful thinking, because the industries that paid for the bill are not going to back down any time soon. Perhaps they’ve realised they’re at least going to need to be slightly more subtle about wanting control of the internet. (Although as long as Chris Dodd is speaking for the MPAA, subtlety doesn’t look like it’s going to be an option.) They will be back. But there are others about, trying similar. “SOPA Ireland“ If SOPA offered us a chance to see some real democracy taking place, as millions of Americans contacted their politicians to make their voices heard, then the situation in Ireland is quite different.
An avoidance of scrutiny called a “ministerial order” is being used to put the bill into law without the pesky need to let anyone have a say about it first. ACTA – Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement ACTA is a more confusing affair. The bill remains massively problematic. Data Retention Bill. Europe signs global internet censorship treaty | News & Current Events. Polish Government's Plan To Sign ACTA Gets The SOPA Treatment. We received an amusing email over the weekend chiding us for never having covered ACTA -- the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. Of course, we've actually written 247 articles that mention ACTA (yes, I just counted). It seems that among some folks who just joined the "worry about copyright legislation" bandwagon, they've just discovered ACTA as well. ACTA stories are quickly taking over the SOPA channel on Reddit. I'm happy that more people are coming around to these issues, but they might want to take some time to actually read up on things before they start screaming.
The petition also ignores the most obvious line of attack for the US's participation: the questions about whether or not ACTA really qualifies as an "executive agreement. " Either way, the EU failed to sign at the official signing ceremony (along with Mexico and Switzerland), claiming that it still had to get some legal ducks in a row. And... it appears that these protests are already having at least some impact. Dutch Parliament Rejects ACTA On Human Rights Violations. The controversial ACTA treaty is quickly losing support in Europe.
After a handful of countries already backed off last week, The Netherlands and Bulgaria put their decisions of hold today. A majority of the Parliament is against the ratification of ACTA. They only intend to change this position if there’s irrefutable evidence that it doesn’t violate basic human rights. Right now this is certainly not the case, as professors Douwe Korff and Ian Brown examined ACTA’s compatibility with human rights and concluded: “Overall, ACTA tilts the balance of IPR protection manifestly unfairly towards one group of beneficiaries of the right to property, IP right holders, and unfairly against others.”
“It equally disproportionately interferes with a range of other fundamental rights, and provides or allows for the determination of such rights in procedures that fail to allow for the taking into account of the different, competing interests, but rather, stack all the weight at one end. Polish Protests Put ACTA ‘On Hold’ Massive Street Protests Wage War On ACTA Anti-Piracy Treaty. Artist and Hacktivists Sabotage Spanish Anti-Piracy Law. Acta goes too far, says MEP | Technology. ACTA Anti-Piracy Treaty Criticized by EU Parliament President. Protest drags down Europe’s SOPA. Acta: EU court to rule on anti-piracy agreement.
ACTA Battle Nears Climax in Europe. Why I signed ACTA. We Need Copyright Reform, Not ACTA!