…from the company that brought you ‘Music Freedom‘:
Monday:
“We will not comply with this request and access to the Pirate Bay will not be blocked. We don’t want to block users.”
– T-Mobile spokesperson, following an Austrian court ruling that rival carrier A1 Telekom must start blocks against the Pirate Bay immediately. Music organizations IFPI Austria and LSG requested that T-Mobile take similar action, based on the ruling.
Tuesday:
“This week, I am taking aim at a select group of individuals who have actually been stealing data from T-Mobile… we are going after a small group of users who are stealing data so blatantly and extremely that it is ridiculous. They are “hacking” the system to swipe high speed tethered data. These aren’t naive amateurs; they are clever hackers who are willfully stealing for their own selfish gain.
“We are going after every thief, and I am starting with the 3,000 users who know exactly what they are doing. The offenders start hearing from us tomorrow. No more abuse and no risk to the rest of our customers’ experience. It’s over.”
– T-Mobile CEO John Legere, after learning that ‘data thieves’ were poaching T-Mobile’s tethered data.
Image by Terry Alexander, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC by 2.0).
I’m sure that if an actual court – and not private-industry lobbying firms – tells T-Mobile they must cut off TPB in their country, this story will have a different ending. Get the judicial order, or STFU.
This makes perfect sense. They are protecting their asset.
What chu talkin’ bout Willis?!
pipe
Are you trying to suggest a moral equivalence between allowing access to file sharing (along with the rest of the internet, with no direct participation or profit) and breaking into proprietary systems and stealing information, probably to sell?
File sharers are not hackers or profiteers. T-Mobile are not hackers. I acknowledge they’re benefitting indirectly from file sharing, but I’m pretty sure the rest of the internet is enough of a draw to keep their customers either way. Pirate Bay aren’t hackers either, though they sell ads, which I concede violates the ‘free-as-in-freedom’ ethos as I understand it.
If anything the hackers are like Pirate Bay, though I think that’s still a stretch. They’re certainly not like T-Mobile.
People who think piracy is benign obviously aren’t out of work because of it. Some people are idiots, unable to see past their own selfish gain.
They have to stay competitive with other cell carriers who aren’t complying.
I believe hacking someone’s internet for any means is unjustified and should be prosecuted.
That being said file sharing is pretty benign other than that.
In the information age I dont believe banning any sharing of p2p information. It’s just the simple evolution of the internet.
First, TMobile doesn’t have a “moral” responsibility to block ThePirateBay. To them, TPB is just another website and as a communications company, it is neither their responsibility or right to decide what content is available on the internet. Second, it would be a dangerous precedent for communications companies to decide what you do or do not look at on the internet. What if Tmobile decided to block all videos of police shooting citizens? I mean, that has a greater impact on the safety of this country than does TPB.