Less than three days after Eircom has closed the virtual door on the soon-to-be-legalised Pirate Bay than we can already find a home grown alternative in PirateBay.ie

The original case has now been well discussed and reported across Irish and international media. Eircom in a world-first has come to an agreement with four major record labels represented by IRMA to suspend the internet access of any customer suspected of accessing copyrighted material ie music via Eircom’s network.

Full article here:

Internet users face shutdown over illegal music downloads

Unsurprisingly there has been a huge reaction from internet users:

Eircom to cut off Music File Sharers

Now that the dust is settling there is a growing movement to take action and protest against the government, Eircom, IRMA and of course the record labels behind this profit-motivated attack on personal freedom. Anybody who uses the internet in Ireland really needs to voice their opposition to these moves by Eircom and IRMA. Irish bloggers have been vocal, and other sites have been created especially to draw attention to the problem.

Music industry pushing for internet filtering as well as “three strikes” – what can you do about it?

As well as making your opinions known to all of the parties involved it would also be useful to contact each and every publicly listed member of IRMA by phone, post or email and let them know what we think of their organisation’s actions.

A list of members is available on the IRMA site here:

IRMA Members

More information is available at the following links:

Eircom Filtering the Internet

IRMA Threatens Irish ISPs

Blackout Ireland

A sample Blackout Ireland letter to the ISPs

Belgium’s Mobistar doesn’t waffle over iPhone 3G plans:
Belgium carrier Mobistar has offered details on its suggested iPhone 3G plans.

Technorati Tags: Apple, iphone, Mobistar, Belgium, unlocked iphone 3G

Clamour continues as Apple preps wider iPhone launch plans, no exclusivity

Have Apple finally seen sense and given up on the idea of network exclusivity which resulted in rip-off pricing by O2 Ireland? Time will tell but seeing as O2 Ireland haven’t followed their UK counterparts by dropping the handset price by £100 it may be a long time before we see reasonably-priced iPhone plans here.

http://patphelan.net/irish-taken-as-fools-as-o2-ireland-iphone-package-comes-with-attached-paddy-tax/

However, much of the o2 tariff woes may now recede somewhat with the release of the “definitive” iphone cracking software, PWNage Tool.

http://www.iphone-dev.org/

T-Mobile iPhone Pricing

Many people will be able to get past the queasy feeling as they stump up 400 or 500 quid for a shiny new iphone. What is less palatable is the insane tariffs that O2 want to impose on Irish suckers customers!

The Irish blogging community were quickly on the case, using all kinds of colourful words to describe 02 and their pricing policy – and rightly so!

Blog Reaction to iphone pricing in Ireland