Slashdot Mirror
Dutch ISPs Refuse To Block Pirate Bay
judgecorp writes "Two Dutch ISPs have complied with a demand to block the Pirate Bay, but KPN and T-Mobile are refusing to block the site."
Torrent Freak has a bit more info. T-Mobile at least seems to imply they would respond to a court order, and are merely refusing to take down sites at the request of a private entity.
I would sooner live in a world where blockbuster films were uneconomical to produce, and therefore simply didn't exist, than one where the internet miracle is smothered.
Die big content. Die.
No...
the 2 other ISP received court orders to do so.
Please read the article next time..
That about sum it up?
Not really, no. If you read the article (or even the summary) you'll see it is related to Dutch ISPs and that it's BREIN that is the anti-piracy group making the demand. Also that the ISPs you've categorized as fearing the MPAA, RIAA and BSA (which are all American?) were in fact taken to court by BREIN, the court then ruled that they had to block access.
Not sure how you got modded insightful, it's not even close to correct.
What!? Read the ****ing article?!
This is slashdot! We *never* read the article before posting!
Ok, humor aside, the 3 orgs I listed have more fingers in foriegn pies than hentai monsters have tentacles.
Those 3 orgs play the tune that the other crony orgs dance to. I would be flabbergasted if they didn't have their tentacles rammed to the hilt and squirming hard inside on this proceeding. The degree of overlap and collusion between the american orgs, and the localized foreign ones is so great it makes very little sense to segregate them without becoming pedantic.
The article is misleading. The two ISP's that have complied have done so because of a court order, not because of their own choosing, which is explained in the referred article. BREIN (the Dutch RIAA) sued the first two ISP's and the court ordered them to block The Pirate Bay. Now that the court ruled in their favour, they have written letters to the other large ISP's in The Netherlands (KPN, T-Mobile and UPC) to also block The Pirate Bay. Those ISP's now refused, just like the first two, Ziggo and XS4ALL, too to block The Pirate Bay without a court order. Now it'll be a wait how that trial ends.
My own ISP Ziggo fought a courtcase with XS4ALL and lost. KPN is the owner of XS4ALL but they operate independtly. KPN and T-Mobile only got a request from Brein (Brain, although in dutch it is more the word for thought process then the lump of meat) and KPN basically said, after some deliberation and back-tracking that they wouldn't respond to a voluntary request.
KPN and T-Mobile are by now means heroes but have realized that doing such a thing without a court order is opening a can of worms. KPN is the formers monopolist goverment landline company, so they have experience with common carrier dillema's and are a bit to big to be easily intimidated. Go ahead, sue KPN, they will see you in court for the next century. Not because they are nice but simply because they know their business.
Ziggo currently has a page up explaining they have to comply for now with the order but are fighting it.
This is a real dillema in Holland, it was one of the countries that fought to get a Freedom on the Internet thing going and donated a large sum of money to it, just as this story breaks. The current government really doesn't need this right now as a right wing government is being beaten in the polls by a very left wing party who is now according to some, the largest party if elections were to be held. And this is not Labour left wing, this is real hardcore left, left of even UNIONS! *sound of American readers crapping their pants*
Nobody right now wants to be associated with Brein restricting the peoples access to their bread and circusses. The SP (the upcoming protest party) is against the ending of the tax on blank CD's that goes to artists. You might think this is a bad thing but the tax is fairly light. It is the content industry that wants it torn down IN exchange for removing the right to download and make personal copies etc etc. The SP is saying, "no, we keep the low tax on an outdated format and won't make any changes to the copyright laws in Holland until the content industry chances". And these guys are winning right now, oh not just on these policies but the old parties hardly want to give them even more ammo to fight on.
Mostly right now the situation is that Brein is making everyone in power extremely uncomfortable. It doesn't help their case that a famous dutch singer supposedly went bankrupt (awh, poor artists) and then it was found he had millions stashed away through tax freud... doesn't help the image of the struggling artist. The right wing government one success story with the middle class is the cutting of benefits to artists, the starving artist angle of Brein isn't being swallowed anymore by anyone. The right hates them for living on handouts and the left hates them for wanting to restrict freedoms to feed the rich... caught between a rock and a hard place.
The piratebay story has been playing for a long time and this is by no means the end of it. For now, the politicians have tried to ignore it but the problem with that is that it keeps getting bigger and bigger... all it needs is the right story of a minister promoting freedom on the internet and the link to said minister doing nothing to stop said freedom in his own country when there isn't a soccer match on TV.
Stay tuned for further developments.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
At least brein doesn't sue individual downloaders for 10k per song
Maybe be don't, but last I saw them in action, they were telling people lies about how copyright law works in the Netherlands. They were telling people that things were illegal that actually weren't. Also, I think one of their high-ranking members was actually caught breaking copyright law.
I am glad people are not simply folding to BREIN's threats, but actually tell them to go convince a court that they got the law on their side this time.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
BREIN took some (small) ISPs to court to get blocking orders, and won. These ISPs have, reluctantly, implemented blocking.
Then they said: "Don't make us go to court to get orders for each and every one of you [ISPs]; because we will, and we will win, and you will lose money fighting us, and then have to block anyway, and we will hate you."
And nobody blinked. They said: "Sure; go and get court orders for each and every one of us. Because until you do, we're not doing anything you say. We have oodles of money and, thanks to people like you, we're in court and paying lawyers all the time anyway. One more lawsuit isn't a big deal, and it's better than the alternative."
And BREIN is basically going "Waaaah! We don't want to have to get orders for every single one of you, every single time! That's almost as much of a pain as suing every person who uploads! We want you to voluntarily do it! Why aren't you scared of us?"
BREIN are also trying to imply that just because they (have proved that they) can get a court order, that this implies that all ISPs are a priori required to comply, and waiting until they have a court order against them is somehow an abuse of the spirit of the law(!)
In Don Lafontaine's voice:
In a world where blockbuster films are so uneconomical to produce, the simply don't exist...
[close-up of unshaven DiCaprio taking a swig of Everclear]
A world where the internet miracle is not smothered...
[cut to LAN party with a bunch of stereotypical geeks]
Set your phasers on "funky"!
I don't understand you. XS4All fought in court for your right to use PirateBay - unfortunatly they lost and they have to comply with the court order. (Law is there for all, you know.) You punish them by cancelling your subscription?
Nope, it doesn't sum it up.
The 2 providers who will block were ordered by a court to do so.
The blocking providers are XS4All and Ziggo and they already appealed the ruling, but they still have to implement the block in the meantime.
The other providers were not mentioned in the court order and so they decide not to implement the block unless ordered by court...
I would like to personally apologize on behalf of my country, its legislators, and its judicial system.
Personally, yet AC? Tsk, tsk.
Frankly, I am embarrassed. Additionally, I have canceled my xs4all subscription. Xs4all - ironically known for holding the privacy and freedoms of its users in high regard - complied with this nonsensical court order and has since blocked thepiratebay.org.
I'm not quite sure what's happening with this country (and I suppose the rest of the world as well), but I know it's not good.
Xs4all didn't really have a choice, now did they? Disobeying a court order is not a smart move, and if you keep disobeying, you lose.
By cancelling your subscription, you are punishing the wrong party, and have only demonstrated you are a freeloader. The least you could have done, was to wait for the appeal. Both Xs4all and Ziggo have announced they will appeal.
Cancelling your subscription is the worst thing you could have done. You do not get it, do you? If a company, be it an ISP or anything else, is ordered by a court, to block access to something, the only thing that company CAN do is execute that order, however nonsensical said order. Why? Because, if they want to fight the judge's decision - and both Ziggo and XS4ALL have already announced they are going to - their chances of winning that appeal go way up. Not executing a court's order opens up a whole can of worms of possibilities for the counterparty to sue them into the ground for all eternity, or for the (next, higher) court to find them in contempt in the appeal. At least now they can say they complied with the order, even if it was under great protest.
The judge - who almost certainly must have made a fortune with this case or must be the dumbest judge in the world - has basically given Brein carte blanche to have Ziggo and XS4ALL block anything on the internet they deem to be violating the copyrights of the artists they represent, which to me is a far greater concern than the fact that the instigating factor happens to be TPB. If BREIN, or its trigger happy director Tim Kuik sees anything it does not like, for example on '/.'. In name, it will always be something along the lines of 'that page on that site is violating the rights of this and that artist', but because the judge's decision does not allow verification of the lists BREIN sends to these ISPs, virtually any ip-address or fqhn could appear on that list and the ISPs in question would - at least until their appeal is fought and won - have no choice but to block access to it.
I'm no expert, but cases like these fascinate me, because they touch on the very cornerstone of everything we hold dear, both in the internet community and in the real world: freedom, in every way possible. How far does freedom of expression go? How high (or how low) should the powers of big conglomerates reach? How far does the concept of 'fair use' extend? Holland was one of the first countries to actually implement a law requiring net neutrality. The very first if I'm not mistaken. Now that supposed net neutrality has been given a serious blow, and so has the freedom of expression in Holland.
And on the Eighth Day, Man created God.
Indeed, the providers aren't at fault. It could be said that they didn't put enough effort into the court case, but even that is unfair considering nobody besides BREIN expected this to happen.
You don't have a choice, a company (or person) must comply with a court order, no matter how crazy. The alternative would lead to huge fines and contempt of court. This is the way the law works.
Unless you're the likes of Microsoft of course. In that case a well-placed campaign contribution can help make the problems go away. But with all the faults of the Dutch justice system, I'm glad that bribes are more conspicuous over here.
There's still the high court. It's not a done deal.
This sig is intentionally left blank