Dutch Court Forces ISPs To Block the Pirate Bay

New submitter swinferno writes "After recent successes in Finland, Italy and Belgium, the Dutch Copyright protection organization BREIN has obtained a verdict that forces two major ISPs to block access to The Pirate Bay domains and gives them the right to submit future domains/IP addresses to be blocked in the future without court order."

Comments

Et tu, Netherlands?

[elrous0]

And from a country where a man once gave his life for freedom of speech, no less.

They once fought the Nazi's, but now they drop to their knees before the entertainment industry.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[Rogerborg]

Invoking Godwin's Law in the first post is worse than anything that Hitler ever did.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[Lumpy]

They are just doing what the United States is telling them to do.

Honestly, Why are the Citizens of the Netherlands allowing the USA To dictate their own laws? Why are you people not protesting in the streets over this stuff?

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[ThatsMyNick]

I am pretty sure he refers to this guy

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[DesScorp]

And from a country where a man once gave his life for freedom of speech, no less.

They once fought the Nazi's, but now they drop to their knees before the entertainment industry.

What a farce. The Pirate Bay isn't fighting for freedom of speech, nor are the Dutch suppressing it. Copyright violation isn't free speech, no matter how you want to dress it up as such.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[Baloroth]

BREIN isn't a US organization. Note how it is representing Dutch movie and recording studios? Nor is there any sign they need the US to encourage them. Believe it or not, the US is not the only source of corporate greed or stupidity in the world, despite what many Slashdot commentators seem to think.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[ichthus]

Don't be a Godwin Nazi.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

What a farce. The Pirate Bay isn't fighting for freedom of speech, nor are the Dutch suppressing it. Copyright violation isn't free speech, no matter how you want to dress it up as such.

Since when has been TPB violating copyrights?

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[Mashiki]

Never. No more so than google has been violating copyrights by indexing.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[Synerg1y]

And you honestly think that THIS particular case is free of USA influence? Where is the RIAA and MPAA located? Who is fueling the copyright war? I do agree though, people need to protest, hopefully one day the dutch can hire non-retarded politicians, but I'm preaching from the choir here.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[kdemetter]

Blocking The Pirate Bay, is also suppressing freedom of speech. There's a blog on it, for example.
Someone could also use it too hosts it's own creations, and ask feedback on it trough the comments.
And it could be used to host content criticizing a regime, controversial opinions , etc...

The Pirate Bay does advocate free speech, though obviously they see it broader ( freedom of information ).

So any country blocking TPB , is fighting piracy ( though very unsuccessfully ) , and is suppressing freedom of speech at the same time.
Any file sharer will find a way to work around it, so this does nothing to stop piracy. Torrents and magnet links remain accessible.

However, actual free speech, like the opinions of users, blog entries, are now inaccessible to the user just wants to visit the site .
So it does a lot more harm to free speech, then that it does anything against piracy.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[Dunbal]

Copyright violation isn't free speech

Please give a single example of a copyright violation by "The Pirate Bay". Oh wait, you can't. You want to get into the whole argument of "facilitating copyright violation" then you might as well sue network, computer and storage equipment manufacturers, not to mention anyone who ever built and sold a set of speakers.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[Catbeller]

Godwin's Law becomes null when fascism is reborn.

And fascism is a mode of government which requires a fusion of corporate business and government, to the point which it becomes impossible to separate the motivations of the two.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[tsa]

That's why they have that blog, so they can claim that blocking their site is a violation of freedom of speech.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[Moryath]

The start of said world war was when a certain political party came to power on a racist platform, spouting about how "the foreigners" had destroyed a certain country, and proceeded to eliminate any newspaper or news outlet that wasn't a part of their propaganda machine.

Then they came up with even worse things to do. But it started with propaganda and censorship.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[idontgno]

Hold it, Citizen. Please step over into this Free Speech Zone. Thanks.

The razor wire and locked gate are for your own protection.

Now feel free to speak your mind.

Thanks for your cooperation.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[lgw]

Please give a single example of a copyright violation by "The Pirate Bay". Oh wait, you can't. You want to get into the whole argument of "facilitating copyright violation" then you might as well sue network, computer and storage equipment manufacturers, not to mention anyone who ever built and sold a set of speakers.

Ahh, so you've read the RIAA's roadmap for 2012 then?

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[FreeUser]

The very act of providing copyrighted material for download without permission from the copyright holders is prima facie copyright violation in almost all legal systems that have copyright systems in place.

The pirate bay has done none of those things.

This argument that you and some others are making is stupid on its face, and frankly dishonest as well, the equivalent of a looter saying "Oh yeah? Prove that this stuff isn't mine".

Actually, your comment is what is stupid (or at least ignorant, as in, completely uninformed). The pirate bay posts links to 3rd party sites that may or may not contain downloadable content that is being made available in violation of copyright.

If you are going to target the pirate bay, you must also target Bing, Google, and every other search engine out there. It's a dangerous precedent, one that threatens the entire Internet as we know it.

And I say that as one who (1) does not use the pirate bay (but has looked at the site to see what the fuss is about), (2) creates copyrighted material myself, and (3) values both the Internet and freedom of expression it facilitates over short-term tactical moves trying to reduce copyright violations. Even if they were effective the price in terms of our freedoms wouldn't be worth it. The fact that they are so ineffective as to be laughable, shows either the stupidity of those promoting such methods or, more likely, as these people are generally not stupid, the underlying agenda they are pursuing that has nothing to do with copyright violations and everything to do with suppressing speach within western democracies while maintaining plausible deniability with the wider, uninformed public. ACTA and SOPA are the logical next steps in this progression, at which point it won't be irresponsible sites like the pirate bay that are at risk, but any site, anywhere, where anyone says anything the content cartels don't like, including probably just about any criticism of copyright law, present or future (or for that matter, anything any ruling government or influencial corporate cartel doesn't like).

It's nearly game over dude. Live in denial at your own risk.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[shaitand]

If lower statutes trump free speech then it would have been illegal for Dr. Martin Luther King to discuss the organized civil disobedience in the civil rights movement. His speech clearly helped facilitate and encourage this activity in the same way the pirate bay encourages and facilitates civil disobedience in the form of piracy.

I think you'll likely find the only difference between the two is that you agree with Dr. King's agenda and do not agree with that of the pirate bay and the pirate party. Free speech is guaranteed constitutionally in the highest law of the land because its most important uses will often encourage the violation of lesser laws thought to be unjust or the result of government corruption.

At least this is the case here in the US even if free speech and the constitution hasn't always been honored here in practice. I don't know about the Netherlands. And yes, it is not a coincidence that the dutch branch of the RIAA/MPAA is taking the same action as the finish and other EU branches. These groups are affiliated and the ringleader is the US branch.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[Hatta]

No, Godwins law is as valid as it ever was. All Godwins law states is that as the length of a thread increases, the probability of someone mentioning Hitler or Nazis approaches one. The rebirth of fascism has only shifted that curve to the left a bit.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm from the Netherlands, and a volunteer of BitsofFreedom.

We've been quite sucesfull in being a counterweight to the lobby organisations in parlement (downloading is still legal in the Netherlands, and we've just passed Network Neutrality), but this is quite a setback.

The battle rages on..

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[Hatta]

Or that the guy driving the get-away car for a bank robbery is also doing something illegal. So we at least have some legal precedent that not actually doing an illegal act, but enabling it is an illegal act is itself a crime.

This is a great analogy. What if the guy driving the get-away car is a taxi? What if he just picks people up and takes people places without asking too many questions? Is he guilty too? Should we force taxi drivers to obtain affadavits from their passengers declaring that their transportation is for legal purposes? Should we force search engines to verify the legality of the content they index? Is there a meaningful difference between the two?

Search engines are like taxis. They'll take you anywhere you ask them to. If they take you somewhere illegal, that's your fault not the taxi and not the search engine.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[elrous0]

It's even in the capital for short walking distance to transport the bribe.

In their defense, do you realize how heavy a suitcase full of cash really is?

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[fritsd]

But it is a fact that they fought the Nazi's, not an "argument".

no... sorry, but it is disingenuous (sp?) to put it like that..
I read a quote somewhere (can't be bothered to look it up but it could well have been from Lou de Jong) that went something like this:
"5% happily collaborated with the Nazis, 5% joined the resistance and fought the Nazis, and the other 90% stayed at home and kept their curtains closed."

For a seriously good (but fictional) film about the shades of grey you get in war-time and after, I suggest watching "The Assault"/"De Aanslag" by Fons Rademakers, based on the excellent book by Harry Mulisch.

Warning: film may shatter easy black-vs-white preconceptions about good and evil.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands?

[EdIII]

His argument is far from stupid on its face and is completely accurate.

The TPB is well known for having founders that have philosophical disagreements with copyright, to say the least. However, they provide no copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holders.

In fact, what they provide is a torrent tracking service. So technically, the copyright on the torrent belongs to the person who uploaded the torrent file. Permission to host the torrent file was given by the user explicitly.

The file itself is not violating any copyrights. It can contain file hashes of material that is protected by copyrights from entirely different entities. That is also not violating copyright either. You cannot argue that a hash is a derivative work.

Once the torrent file is up on the site anybody that knows the "signature" of the torrent file can ask TPB, through the tracker service, "Do you know any 3rd parties that claim to have parts of this file available?".

Aside from the fact that the founders have personally advocated piracy, to my knowledge, they are not actually engaged in piracy. At most it could be argued that they help facilitate it, but that argument equally applies to any other search engine out there including Google.

That's the real problem here. TPB is an easy target because of its name and philosophies, but the legal arguments are incorrect and this decision is incorrect. It does hamper free speech, in so far as it holds websites legally liable for content posted by 3rd parties. Not a good precedence regardless of how you feel about the TPB.

Also add in the fact that the judgement allows the BREIN to basically have complete control over all domains and IP addresses being blocked in that country and you have a serious problem that far outweighs whatever damage was being done to the copyright holders by the 3rd parties involved in the TPB.

It's like having a cockroach problem in a neighborhood and then nuking it from orbit. To cut off your nose to spite your face. Pick any saying you want.

Your understanding of what is actually happening here is lacking to say the least and is colored by your feelings about piracy in general, and the character of the TPB.

While I do support sane copyright laws and policies, I also realize the larger picture of what is at stake. That specifically being freedom, privacy, and anonymity.

Is it worth destroying all of our freedoms over some copyrights? I hardly think so. The Public Domain is the most important thing on the planet, and copyright laws can help foster the creation of works and ideas being added to it, but ultimately a free society is more important than copyright law, or copyrights themselves.

When it becomes clear that we have obtained technology that makes it effortless to create copies of ideas and expressions we really really need to figure out a better way to compensate authors, artists, inventors, etc. instead of crippling societies with draconian laws that have much darker implications and temptations for abuse than you might imagine.

I understand your feeling and what you are trying to say, but you should try to listen to what everybody else here is saying to you too.

Right to submit future domains, but

[DCTech]

The verdict also said that if they submit non-TPB domains or ip's and violate that court decision, they will be legally liable.

Re:Right to submit future domains, but

[DCTech]

Except that it's only limited to one site, and the decision was only made because TPB didn't start filtering dutch visitors like earlier court verdict said. They have also been playing games setting up additional domains and ip's, because they know companies have to go via slow courts to get them banned.

Re:Right to submit future domains, but

[daid303]

Doesn't make it right. Some people in cars drive around without a valid drivers license. Should traffic lights be hold responsible for letting them pass trough green? Should the phone company be responsible for someone violating a restraining order?

This is stupid, it won't work. It's only 2 ISPs (we have many more). Also, from the dutch news:

De internetprovider weet nog niet precies hoe ze technisch gezien de blokkade moeten aanpakken. "We hebben nog geen manier gevonden om dit te doen, maar misschien hebben we iets over het hoofd gezien."

Translated:

The ISP does not know how to implement this block on a technical level. "We haven't found a way to do this yet, but we might have overlooked something."

Re:Right to submit future domains, but

[daid303]

... which had nothing to do with what I said? I said "the infrastructure owners should not be held responsible for actions of people using the infrastructure".

You reply with "but the legal stuff can be acquired by other means". Which has NOTHING to do with the issue at hand. The issue is that the wrong people are being held responsible, and that this is the first step for censorship. Which ends with 1984 becoming reality.

Re:Right to submit future domains, but

[mapkinase]

Does not matter, tables are turned. Now the accuser (BREIN) can swiftly block you without order and you as an accused have to prove your innocence.

In Netherlands that I knew (not Kafkalands that the whole Europe quickly becomes) one cannot take something from another without court order or legal mutually agreed transaction.

First they started to give broad powers to the executive branch to circumvent the judicial branch in encroachment of property rights of individuals (guantanamo, TSA, etc), then they started to delegate the right to take your property to private corporations under supervision of the government (imminent domain, for example), now a private organization of "authors, artists, publishers, producers and distributors of music, film, games, interactive software..." can take away your Internet business without court order?

Truly, it's like Martin Niemöller said.

And Isn't it time to move on from bringing up what Martin Niemoller said to bringing up what Oscar Niemeyer did?

Re:Right to submit future domains, but

[Commontwist]

Holly - A green plant with berries used for festive purposes and slightly toxic to humans.

Hollywood.

By George, you're right!

Re:Right to submit future domains, but

[AngryDeuce]

it noted that the legal offerings available at The Pirate Bay are not limited to the site and are also available from other sites and means. As such, preventing a large number of copyright infringements is justified.

So I can go ahead and ban access as long as it is available somewhere else through other means? And that doesn't stifle free speech how?

That sounds a lot like the "Free Speech Zones" that are springing up all over the place here in the U.S.. "Sure, you have freedom of speech, just only in a time, place, and manner in which we dictate due to a decision with which you have no input whatsoever" That sure doesn't seem like "freedom" to me.

Et tu, Netherlands part 2

[Anonymous Coward]

The Dutch ISP XS4ALL just decided to appeal again. They might win since BREIN based their offence on some very (VERY) poorly done statistics.

Re:Et tu, Netherlands part 2

[tsa]

If we didn't have XS4ALL our internet would have been regulated much much more. I should get a subscription with them.

Griefing

[Aladrin]

This has the potential for some serious griefing. Since they'll keep blocking IPs and such, obviously TPB needs new IPs constantly. Cloud time! How many of Amazon's IPs do you think they'll have to block before realizing that they're blocking legit sites, too?