Microsoft Blocks Pirate Bay Links: Report

• by Brandon Dimmel on 20120326 @ 08:00AM EST | google it | send to friends
• Filed under Piracy | (related terms: pirate bay, microsoft, torrents, live messenger, torrentfreak)

A new report suggests that Microsoft may be blocking users of its Windows Live Messenger service from sharing links to the controversial torrent downloading site: The Pirate Bay.

The report is supplied by TorrentFreak, which covers the lively copyright debate surrounding the use of torrent sites.

For those not familiar with torrents, they are a type of file and a specialized file transfer system that allow users to rapidly upload and download extremely large files, such as those containing copyrighted movies, music, and TV shows.

Pirate Bay and All Torrents Occupy Legal Grey Area

On the surface, The Pirate Bay appears a lot like services that have previously been outlawed for supporting or conducting copyright infringement, such as LimeWire and Napster.

In fact, the general consensus of copyright protection agencies, such as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is that torrents are illegal. (Source: mashable.com)

However, not everyone feels the same. In some countries, torrents are perfectly legal. When a torrent-transfer site is hosted in one of these geographic areas, authorities in other countries can find closing it down extremely difficult.

For this and other reasons, the torrent business remains a controversial one.

Because Microsoft has repeatedly faced problems combating the theft by piracy of its own products worldwide, it's not surprising the Redmond-based software giant would side against the use of torrents.

Live Messenger Refusing to Send Links to Pirate Bay?

According to TorrentFreak, users of Windows Live Messenger have recently complained that when they attempt to paste links to The Pirate Bay into their messages, recipients have reported that they never received those links. (Source: webpronews.com)

The TorrentFreak report states that Microsoft is alerting message senders that The Pirate Bay is an unsafe site.

If Microsoft is indeed sending this warning, say some experts, the logical conclusion is that Microsoft may have a system in place to flag certain messages for what the company considers to be dangerous content.

Interestingly, TorrentFreak reports that Windows Live Messenger messages that include links to torrent sites other than The Pirate Bay do not trigger the Microsoft warning.

Experts suggest this indicates Microsoft isn't being consistent with its warning policy (if such a policy exists). (Source: torrentfreak.com)

Microsoft has not yet commented on the issue.

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