It is just a start. If we do not revolt more sites will be blocked. If we hide like chickens more sites will be blocked. soon all the Internet service provider will block torrent sites and video sharing sites. Has the court given any reason for this step. Why in india? link-removed cannot be blocked if proper court procedure is followed.
India is proving to be more dictatorial than any other nations.
Video sharing sites are very useful as they let people any only hear but also see what is happening all around the world. It helps share our independent views which has profound effect in peoples life. That is why they want these sites blocked even before broadband reaches to majority of population.
The main reason is control and to keep more and more people dumb.
Is there nothing we people can do to stop it?
I kind of agree and simultaneously disagree here: while I agree with the sentiments, the argument doesn't really stand up.
Firstly, link-removed *can* be blocked if the proper court procedure is followed. Arguably, Pirate Bay is in no way a legitimate file-sharing site: the percentage of genuine material that can be sourced with the help of the website is so small it's probably insignificant. THAT BEING SAID, I don't necessarily think that it should be blocked, either, as it could potentially be turned in to a very useful tool for sourcing legitimate content OR promoting independent artists OR even if it's model isn't changed making available content to people in regions which the corporates "forget".
The likelihood of a big hollywood blockbuster making it's way to certain countries with traditional distribution methods is almost nil - but does that mean the people in those countries should be denied that content? No way!
Doesn't matter if we're talking about Central Africa or even certain developed countries: take for example my own country where there is the problem where there are virtually no legitimate services available for any user to get certain programming. Using "Game of Thrones" as an example, the legitimate services which are available CAN NOT get the rights to distribute it because HBO has already given exclusivity to SKY
TV. This despite the fact that HBO itself actually owns part of the legitimate service in question!!!
So in that case, yes, TPB is doing a fantastic job at getting the content to the users because the corporates are too stupid, ignorant or greedy to recognize that despite the audience being willing to obtain the content legally, the content they want is not being made available, and because of this failure, resorting to TPB is reasonable, because it just works.
On the other hand, content owners have the right to protect their copyrights and under the 1957 Copyright Act, ISPs are obliged to help, so a lot of the sites (not all, but a large percentage nevertheless) being blocked lately are not exactly what one would call censorship, but are promoting piracy for piracy's sake.
Still, there's no reason this content couldn't be made available legitimately once it's left the cinema/tv/dvd platforms. Why shouldn't I be able to jump online and watch last week's episode of Indian Idol or Bade Acche Lagte Hai or Iss Pyaar Ko Kya Naam Doon? Similarly, I should be able to go see stuff at the movies and then if I like the movie, get a legal copy for download or streaming to watch again later. Again, it comes down to a massive distribution failure and probably equally importantly, too much choice.
It's hard to sort the wheat from the chaff, and it pisses me off to go and see a bad movie at the cinema or watch terrible television shows, and in every country I've ever lived in, there is an enormous glut of bad content, so even the ability to preview stuff to make an informed decision would be nice. At least for Hollywood, we have sites like trailers.apple.com and stuff, but here in India, this sort of promotion isn't really done yet (though as I'm not much of a consumer of Indian content, I may be entirely wrong here), so I think I would have to resort to downloading a cam copy of a movie to see if it piques my interest or not before maybe heading out to the cinema to see it myself.
With all this in mind, I do agree that unfortunately, it hasn't ended there. With some sites (Vimeo, Dailymotion in particular) the blanket ban on the sites went too far: copyright owners have the legal ability and right to take down videos that violate their copyright and THIS should be the first reaction to seeing the content made available, not a court order. And with other sites, well, yes, they may simply be trying to hold back or quash information and opinions from certain people, and unless someone is literally spreading a message of hate (eg kill all politician and overthrow the government) in a real democracy, silencing people by censorship is supposed to be wrong and should not be allowed.
