If we want to effectively fight censorship, we should stop using the language of those who falsely claim this is not censorship, and the courts that abuse their power to violate the people's rights.
It's not the sites that are being blocked, it's the people.
The sites are still there, fully connected to the internet, and there are dozens of ways to access them.
It's the people who's digital movements are being restricted, in a way that is virtually analogous to the restrictions totalitarian regimes impose on the freedoms of their citizens to access information and leave the country.
We are becoming the virtual prisoners of a regime not formed by politburos or generals, but judges with a total and complete disregard for the very foundation of the legal system they are supposed to serve.
Because let it be abundantly clear: as a citizen of a free and democratic country, I have every right to visit the Pirate Bay, read their blog or browse the thousands of torrents they have to offer. Nothing about this is illegal, in fact, my right to do this is supposed to be protected. It is part of the very foundation of our society that these rights are protected. Blood has been spilled to protect them, and these courts are spitting on the graves of those who have laid down their lives for our freedom.
There cannot be a functioning democracy if the courts can restrict the freedoms of millions without while the government looks the other way.
Thanks for the insight into the people versus sites blocking. This never occurred to me and is possibly the strongest way of promoting opposition to it.
BT use cleanfeed. Imagine there's a problem with Cleanfeed, and BT need to "turn it off and on again" - they are not allowed to do so without the written permission of the studios, or without a Judge telling them that it's okay to do so.
> BT also requests the inclusion in the order of the following provision:
"In the event that [BT] forms the reasonable view that for operational reasons relating either to the stability of its system or the functioning of the Cleanfeed system in respect of the IWF watch list it needs to shut down either Cleanfeed itself or the addition to the Cleanfeed system of IP addresses pursuant to [this order] on a temporary basis, [BT] shall not be in breach of this order by such shutting down provided that it applies to the Court as soon as is reasonably practicable but at any rate within 72 hours of such shutting down with an explanation as to why such action was necessary and the duration thereof."
> Instead, I will provide that BT will not be in breach of the order if it temporarily suspends the operation of either Cleanfeed or the addition of IP addresses or URLs with the written consent of the Studios or their agents. If such consent is not forthcoming, BT will have permission to apply to the court on notice. In cases of urgency, an application may be made on short (and informal) notice. For the avoidance of doubt, in cases of real urgency, BT will be entitled to apply to the court without seeking the Studios' consent first.
BT's request (essentially, "in emergency we'll shut down Cleanfeed for maintenance, and ask for permission from the court within 72 hours of doing so") seems very reasonable, but is not allowed.
It would be interesting to see a media company that loses revenue due to wrongly being included in a list of blocked sites taking legal action against the entity that blocked them. I suspect the daily ad-revenues of a website like radiotimes.co.uk are sufficiently large to make it worth them pushing for a settlement, whilst effectively blocking a genuine streaming website has essentially zero impact on the Premier League's revenues. Making misdirected blocking expensive is probably the most effective way of undermining censorship efforts.
If you live in the UK or have any personal or professional interest in the UK internet, I'd encourage you to make a regular donation to the Open Rights Group. They do fantastic work and the money goes a long way.
it would be interesting to know who is being blocked. is it really all copyright issues? i'd feel much happier if it was the really nasty stuff you know - child porn, snuff videos or whatever that were being blocked - you know things that actually damage society not just the pockets of the disgustingly rich who need to grow up and adapt their business models so that they work instead of litigating to try and keep their unjustifiable income... :/
The Internet Watch Foundation are the people who do the stuff about images of child sexual abuse (and criminally obscene images hosted in the UK, and non-photographic obscene images of children hosted in the UK).
ISPs tend to block content suggested by the IWF quickly, because it's in their best interests to do so. The IWF has a tight focus. Their clear about only wanting to keep the blocking they do separate from other forms of blocking - preventing children seeing adult content, for example. (http://www.iwf.org.uk/about-iwf/news/post/366-iwf-response-t...)
> We welcome the Prime Minister making the clear distinction between the fight against online child sexual abuse content and efforts to prevent legal material being viewed by those who are underage. It is critical that these debates are kept separate.
So it seems that the court blocks are only about forcing ISPs to block the Pirate Bay or Kickass Torrents and the various proxies used to evade those blocks.
The article supports this:
> Once a judge has decided that a website deserves to be blocked under Section 97A of the Copyright Act, each ISP is sent a court order describing the actions they must take to block the website. It specifies the kind of blocking to be undertaken. The court order contains other important information, including the name of the organisation responsible for mistakes and changes to the lists of clone sites to be blocked.
> I examined BT's CleanFeed system (its proper name is the BT Anti-Child-Abuse Initiative). This was designed to be a low cost, but highly accurate, system for blocking "child pornography". At first sight it is significant improvement upon existing schemes. However, CleanFeed derives its advantages from employing two separate stages, and this hybrid system is thereby made more fragile because circumvention of either stage, whether by the end user or by the content provider, will cause the blocking to fail.
How would you suggest we get a list of every domain name currently registered? And how would you suggest we identify blocked domains as opposed to redirected, offline, or similar? And how do you recommend we pay for the billions of comput' hour such a task would take?
Don't be so negative. You can get the master .com domain list from Verizon as a download. Identify blocked domains by the holding page and header info. I'm guessing they do something like the guys here with a big page saying seized.
Not really, not only would brute forcing take impractically long (you'd need all IP addresses as well as allocated domains), but the blocking system does individual pages within sites, which could not be found by this method.
If someone clones all your employer's apps with all the in-app purchases and release everything for free and sales plummet, you're okay losing your job because you haven't grown up and adapted your business model, you disgustingly rich person with unjustifiable income, you? :)
I understand your point of view, but this discussion is more about the transparency of the UK legal process than about the rights or wrongs of downloading.
The UK can be very opaque at times and it would be nice to see what is going on easily.
Edit: and to avoid collateral damage like [1] (shared hosting with 1 IP address)
Our Internet access is being censored in secret because of entrenched interests in big media companies. The desire to prevent piracy is not childish in and of itself, but this is a doomed approach with considerable collateral damage. Successful digital content delivery services have proved the viability of alternative business models that actually benefit consumers. So, a better analogy would be asking whether you'd have been upset at losing a job making horse drawn carriages when the car got invented. Probably yes, no-one likes losing their job - but you'd have to be pretty selfish to lobby for a blanket ban on automobiles.
ironically i have had to deal with this precise problem.
in the real world you deal with real world problems - you don't get to negotiate because you feel entitled - in the general case at least people have zero tolerance for such behaviour and it gets you nowhere.
we have a capitalist society after all... supply, demand and competition rule supreme in our economy.
don't downvote this guy his point is perfectly valid.
i would add as well that i work in the entertainment industry... i have nothing against artist, performers, production staff and feel they deserve rewarding for their work - but (and i have personal bias) i have no love for the leeches that tie them into exploitative contracts then winge when they don't get the benefit of their /should be illegal and are certainly immoral/ business practices because they went out of date 10 years ago.
While it's good to get rid of exploitative contracts, denying the ability for copyright holders (which includes starving artists, indie game developers, artist-owned publishing collectives, etc.) to litigate against those who are ripping off their work goes too far. Without legal tools at their disposal, the small guy WILL get ripped off by larger, more powerful entities. Or small entities for that matter; it's not like copying bits poses any technical hurdle.
you have to pay the price both ways with these things... i still think copyright is garbage. if people can do a better job by ripping me off they deserve it and so do the customers who get a better product. everyone wins except for me... i can't cry too much about that.
The biggest problem is when someone comes and takes your software and doesn't do anything except sell it online for half the cost. This happened to me a number of years ago. They didn't do a better job or offer a better product. They didn't compete on functionality or user experience. They sold my unmodified, identical binaries (at a lower cost) as if they were an authorized reseller and kept all the money for themselves. I fail to see how this individual was deserving of the pure profit they made from my hard work.
It's not the sites that are being blocked, it's the people.
The sites are still there, fully connected to the internet, and there are dozens of ways to access them.
It's the people who's digital movements are being restricted, in a way that is virtually analogous to the restrictions totalitarian regimes impose on the freedoms of their citizens to access information and leave the country.
We are becoming the virtual prisoners of a regime not formed by politburos or generals, but judges with a total and complete disregard for the very foundation of the legal system they are supposed to serve.
Because let it be abundantly clear: as a citizen of a free and democratic country, I have every right to visit the Pirate Bay, read their blog or browse the thousands of torrents they have to offer. Nothing about this is illegal, in fact, my right to do this is supposed to be protected. It is part of the very foundation of our society that these rights are protected. Blood has been spilled to protect them, and these courts are spitting on the graves of those who have laid down their lives for our freedom.
There cannot be a functioning democracy if the courts can restrict the freedoms of millions without while the government looks the other way.