Intellectual Property Law

Facebook Divorces Pirate Bay

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

Facebook is blocking Pirate Bay torrents from being shared on the popular social-networking site, a week after Pirate Bay unveiled a feature to allow Facebook users the ability to link torrents on their profiles.

Beginning Wednesday, the "Share on Facebook" bookmarklet does not function.

Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt told TorrentFreak on Wednesday that the social-networking site "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."

The development came the same day that The Pirate Bay announced more than 100,000 users of the world's most notorious BitTorrent tracker have signed up for its new $6-monthly anonymity service designed to hide IP addresses from the authorities.

In case you forgot. the four co-founders of the Pirate Bay are awaiting an April 17 verdict to criminal copyright infringement charges from their home country of Sweden.

See Also:

• Pirate Bay Crew Defiant on Eve of Landmark Trial
• Entertainment Lawyers Attack Pirate Bay Witness' Qualifications ...
• Pirate Bay Trial Ends; Verdict Due April 17
• Man Charged in Facebook Sex-Extortion Plot
• Researchers Use Facebook App to Create Zombie Army - Update ...
• Did the Facebook-organized Protests Fall Flat?
• Student Who Created Facebook Group Critical of Teacher Sues High ...
• Secret Crush Facebook App Installing Adware, Security Firm Charges ...
• Santa Adds Facebook to Naughty List Over Friend Limit
• Facebook Beacon Tracking Program Draws Privacy Lawsuit

Full post as published by Threat Level on April 08, 2009 (boomark / email).