As repugnant as the behavior of the RIAA and MPAA has been over the past decade, it’s hard to argue against the fact that sites like The Pirate Bay exist to facilitate content theft and avoid the minor issue of having to pay for stuff. But what do you do with a torrent site that posts strict guidelines, outlaws the posting of any torrent of a video or film that’s currently available or due to be released on DVD, mandates that torrents to such content be removed 14 days before the video goes on sale, and is recognized for taking every effort to comply with both the letter and spirit of the laws governing copyright? What do you do with a website that prides itself on being a good citizen and finding a common ground between the interests of copyright holders and those of British expats unable to view content broadcast in their native land?

If you’re the UK-based Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), you threaten to sue it until it shuts down. This is FACT’s second major “victory” in August; Ars Technica has an excellent story on how the agency brought a private suit against SurfTheChannel after the UK government decided its owner hadn’t committed a crime.

UKNova was a website dedicated to making British television that had already broadcast available to expatriates who hadn’t been able to see it. The site had strict rules about content, as shown below. We have reached the point where broadcast networks are so terrified of the Internet, they see even sites like this as threats rather than business opportunities.

Think about it. You’re a network provider. You discover a website dedicated to preserving the very copyrights your business depends on. A website with a built-in customer base and established brand. In a sane world, you open a dialog with this website. You have a conversation about market opportunity, reach, and presentation. In the sane world, the Internet gives you the opportunity to connect with users you couldn’t previously serve. The expats and foreigners interested enough in Britain to be downloading programs that aren’t commercially available are precisely the users who might want to buy such programs when they go up for sale.

But in today’s world, the knee-jerk reaction of INTERNET=BAD prevents rational thought. When UKNova was contacted by Fact, it immediately removed the few bits of content the organization claimed were infringing. It was then told “ALL links or access to content provided by UKNova are infringing, unless you can prove that you have obtained explicit permission from the copyright holder for that content.”

Faced with this level of threat, UKNova chose to shut down, depriving users of any ability to watch the allegedly infringing content…

Oh wait. That’s not how this works. Thanks to the Streisand Effect, UKN’s users have promised to seed the shows elsewhere. A number of people have expressed frustration, noting that UKN was a resource that guided their purchases of British content. Instead of building on UKNova as an example of how a website and a media holder could work together to mutual gain, Fact has guaranteed that the content it wanted most to censor will instead explode everywhere. Those sites won’t operate under UKN’s ethics or obey its rules. They won’t police links to remove torrents to products that are now available commercially.

More than ten years post-Napster, there are still people who think crushing websites works. No one who pirates content is going to miss an episode of what UKNova carried. Legitimate users, on the other hand, get screwed. And, of course, those customers who used the site as a means to purchasing legitimate content later will just have to steal it outright.

via Torrent Freak