Earlier this week, I wrote about how UK ISPs were blocking The Promo Bay, a site launched by The Pirate Bay to promote independent artists who didn't having their material shared. The ISPs had been ordered by a court to block The Pirate Bay, but seemed to have added The Promo Bay on orders from the record industry. Now the UK record industry body, the BPI, has graciously decided that it won't insist on blocking a site dedicated to promoting artists who have the audacity to make music without signing up for one of their awful record deals.
"Until very recently, the domain name 'promobay.org' linked directly to The Pirate Bay and it was therefore a domain name blocked by the ISPs under the court orders," wrote BPI chairman Geoff Taylor.
"The newly reinvented Promobay.org website appears not to be engaged in copyright infringement and we therefore asked the relevant ISPs yesterday to no longer block it."
The BPI could not be reached for further comment on Wednesday, but the BBC understands that Promobay.org will be made available again within 24 hours.
Note how Geoff Taylor implies that when The Promo Bay was associated with The Pirate Bay that it was engaged in copyright infringement, but isn't any longer. Of course, this is utter rubbish — the site was never engaged in copyright infringement. If the record industry asked to have it censored, the industry was either incredibly cavalier about censorship, or it cynically opted to screw over the artists who had the audacity to go it on their own. Either way, the industry has demonstrated (again) its total unfitness to act as judge, jury and executioner on the Internet.
Pirate Bay spin-off site Promo Bay to be unblocked [Dave Lee/BBC]
