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British ISP Ordered To Block Links to Pirate Site
An anonymous reader writes "A UK High Court judge has ruled that BT must block access to a website which provides links to pirated movies. Justice Arnold ruled that BT must use its blocking technology CleanFeed — which is currently used to prevent access to websites featuring child sexual abuse — to block Newzbin 2. 'Currently CleanFeed is dealing with a small, rural road in Scotland,' ISPA council member James Blessing told BBC Radio 4's PM programme. 'Trying to put Newzbin and other sites into the same blocking technology would be a bit like shutting down the M1. It is not designed to do that.' Digital rights organisation the Open Rights Group said the result could set a "dangerous" precedent. "Website blocking is pointless and dangerous. These judgements won't work to stop infringement or boost creative industries. And there are serious risks of legitimate content being blocked and service slowdown. If the goal is boosting creators' ability to make money from their work then we need to abandon these technologically naive measures, focus on genuine market reforms, and satisfy unmet consumer demand," said ORG campaigner Peter Bradwell."
...court orders pavements(sidewalks) ripped up to prevent bank robbery.
Windows in 6 Bytes (IA-32) : 90 90 90 90 CD 19
I love how trivial this is to get around for the pirates, too. First thing I thought was 'URL Shortener.'
But of course, anyone that really cares would use a VPN and this wouldn't affect them in the first place.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
I wonder:
1. How much this will cost the ISP, especially considering the growing number of sites that provide links to warez. If you only block a few, other will pop up and it will be ineffective. Block many and it will probably have an impact on required infrastructure.
2. If they can block sites that link to material, how will they handle services that get you to sites that link to materials? For example, VPN services and proxies.
3. Will this make warez software improve so no link sites are even needed? Maybe decentralized technologies similar to freenet will become popular for sharing those links.
... God-only-knows-how-many to go...
THE HONOUR OF THE KNIGHTS - CC Licensed Sci-Fi Novel
1.) Went to court, and were granted a ruling that the actions of the site in question infringed copyright, once the judge had listened to the evidence on each side.
2.) Went to court again, seeking an order under s97A, CDPA 1988, that BT should block access to the site, and a judge granted it, having listened to the evidence on each side.
3.) Will go to court a third time, to discuss the measures in question with BT, to determine what is proportionate.
My instinctive reaction is against site blocking, but, as long as the laws on copyright stand - a debate in itself - this seems roughly the right procedure, giving multiple levels of legal scrutiny before imposing an order, rather things being done on a voluntary basis?
I've endured half a decade of being told I'm a tinfoil-hat-wearing maniac for suggesting that the IWF - already in a strange, anti-competitive position of being a private charity endorsed by government and given special legal privileges - is a slippery slope and that technology based on its list would eventually be used at a judicial level to block other sites.
It required lobby groups to step up the pressure in the courts. We've seen that over the past few years. It required an Act to consolidate the views of these lobby groups and set the legislative view of Internet censorship. That was the DEA. Next comes implementation.
Abusing children is wrong and the law has a duty to stop it.
Censoring 0s and 1s does not stop children being abused, but it does provide a framework for censorship.
The IWF list's implementation has not stopped any child abuse, but it has sat as the foundation stone for the Great Firewall of the UK.
Every one of you geeks who works for an ISP which has caved into government pressure to implement the list should be ashamed. You are the problem.
is available on BAILII.
(BAILII - British and Irish Legal Information Institute - is a very valuable resource indeed, for lawyers and those who simply want to understand the laws affecting their lives. legislation.gov.uk is another useful resource.)
How can I add Google, Bing and Jeeves to this list? I want to see how that works out?
"Special interest group"? To protect their interest, they are trying to enforce laws that are currently being broken. Seems reasonable to me. Hopefully, this will deter the casual downloader who isn't particularly aware of the illegality of what they are doing. Obviously, determined downloaders will get around any block BT can put in place, but it sends out a message.
Ydco co
BT = British Telecommunications. But, I had to open up the court order PDF to find this. I'm not sure if you can even find what it means on their website.
It's a slippery slope though. How long before Ryan Giggs or someone like him demands that they block Twitter to protect his super injunction?
To protect their interest, they are trying to enforce laws that are currently being broken. Seems reasonable to me.
The Cleanfeed infrastructure was sold to the public on the basis that it would be used to block child abuse content and nothing else; it was specifically said time and again that this kind of thing absolutely and categorically would not happen. Even ignoring that, Newzbin simply provides links, they don't host any infringing material - blocking them seems a stretch of copyright law at best. Saying "it's the law, so it's right" is also dubious - the sites blocked by the great firewall of China are illegal under Chinese law, for example; does that make it right to censor them?
"Casual downloaders" do not generally use or know about Newzbin... they still use bittorrent and HTTP downloads for the most part.
Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
I had never heard of that site. It's got some good stuff. Thanks, Justice Arnold, for bringing it to my attention and that of so many. Now learn about the Streisand Effect.
Newzbin isn't exactly for casual downloaders
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Well it's a matter of logic here. Most all illegal download sites have an even mix of legal and illegal content. would it be unheard of for a linux distribution to be hosted on isohunt etc... Do you think these filters are going to just block out the individual movies and shows, or more realistically just block out any site that has something illegal. This sort of law will continue to branch out and expand. Phase 1. CP, phase 2, piracy, coming soon, Phase 3. subjects deemed highly offensive (Nazi's etc), and continues to branch out.
Why are all file sharers always grouped up with "websites featuring child sexual abuse"?
I understand that some people don't agree with file sharing, that's fine. But they need to stop likening gas station gum theft to bank robbery and child rape.
The biggest websites that link to pirate sites are popular web searches. Google, yahoo, ask, etc.
Good luck blocking them without being swarmed by their lawyers.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
I can see a few companies getting a wee bit upset about that idea of not being able to call their IT staff at home and during holiday and 'ask' them to fix something 'quickly' even if they're a continent away.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
And guns are only able to protect the law and my property. They cannot be used for criminal acts. A hammer is also only able to hit nails on the head. Not you.
Technology is neither good nor evil. But every technology can be used for good and evil.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This is at least something we'll hear about because their competitor will create a huge stink about it. How about webpages that express customer opinion about them, or other pages that don't have the backing of a huge PR and legal department?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I am a capitalist.
I guess civilisation cannot exist without religion.
I really hope they implement something more trivial than a poisoned DNS cache. Because i want this to force customers away from BT, they are such a shit ISP
Had not heard of that site before this case... I must go visit it on my OpenVPN connection on my BT ISP
How is the entire internet subject to an industry which the world can live without? How did they amass this kind of power?
They have no respect for the natural rights of others, so why should we respect the artificial (copy)rights granted to them by the government?
Instead of instructing BT to block traffic to a site which doesn't actually provide any copyrighted materials, why would they not instruct BT to instead block the sites which DO? If "A" provides links to "Z", and Z is the offender, blocking traffic to A will only inevitably result in "B" being created, which also points to Z. And then they have to come back and block B. And so the cycle goes, when they could go right to the source.
Long signatures suck.
Troon wrote : they are trying to enforce laws that are currently being broken. Seems reasonable to me
The issue, if you had not noticed, is whether it should be BT's responsibility to do the enforcement. Seems to me that if anyone is to be pursued on this it should be the owner of Newzbin, not BT.
Take a look here:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1 ...and then read this pdf:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rnc1/cleanfeed.pdf
Barbara would be proud.
Its not trivially easy to throttle since there are too many IPs and they are always shifting and it gives you anon bittorrent/emule (or anything else people decide to write for it as its designed to enable anon P2P unlike Tor).
Forget internet justice. If it was up to me, anyone guilty of sexually abusing a child would be immediately executed. Sick Fucks.
If you make a huge all-powerful death ray and promise not to do any evil with it, sooner or later someone will appropriate your death ray and do evil with it.
"Only following orders" / "only building the tools" are inexcusable from anyone but the most naive. Every engineer has a place in a wider society and must consider the potential in what he builds.
If the engineers responsible for implimenting Cleanfeed quit, it would just result in them being fired and someone else being hired in their place.
All of the tech world was crying out over the introduction of such filters that were going to be used for child porn but overextended to include at first piracy and then other speech that was less acceptable and then on to speech that is currently free.
Off course the powers-that-be had this intention all along and the opposers vilified as child pornographers. Now it's too late, sites will be arbitrarily added and won't be able to removed fully ever again.
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Isn't it about time UK ISPs' site blocking capabilities were turned against the British Government, police and courts? Even a temporary blockage against these neo-fascists might be salutory. After all, what gives them a 'right' to remain unblocked?