Just about a week after the notorious Pirate Bay tracker unveiled a new feature that let's Facebook users share torrents on their profiles, Facebook has responded by blocking users from doing so. While this latest change doesn't seem to have gone down particularly well with some Facebook users (not unusual), it will keep them out the of the firing line of media companies fighting BitTorrent-driven piracy.
Indeed, the company is not hiding the reason for this move, with spokesman Barry Schnitt saying the social networking giant, "respects copyrights and our Terms of Service prohibits placement of 'Share on Facebook' links on sites that contain any content that is infringing. Given the controversy surrounding The Pirate Bay and the pending lawsuit against them, we've reached out to The Pirate Bay and asked them to remove the 'Share on Facebook' links from their site. The Pirate Bay has not responded and so we have blocked their torrents from being shared on Facebook."
In Facebook's defense, most other sites with user interaction on some level would make the same move, but even a small percentage of Facebook users who would have found this useful amounts to a lot of noise in protest. This block comes as the Pirate Bay revealed 100,000 users have signed up to test their IPREDATOR service, designed to provide anonymity to file sharers.
In Facebook's defense, most other sites with user interaction on some level would make the same move, but even a small percentage of Facebook users who would have found this useful amounts to a lot of noise in protest. This block comes as the Pirate Bay revealed 100,000 users have signed up to test their IPREDATOR service, designed to provide anonymity to file sharers.
