Dutch ISPs have to block the Pirate Bay

Yesterday the Dutch lower court of ’s-Gravenhage ordered Dutch Internet Service Providers (ISPs) Ziggo and XS4ALL to start blocking IP-addresses and domain names that are used by the Pirate Bay. The Dutch Entertainment Industry Trade Association (BREIN) had its claim for a preliminary injunction rejected, but now that the court decided on the merits of the case, BREIN got almost all it wished for.

Taking into account that the administrators of the Pirate Bay have been convicted in Sweden and that a Dutch lower court has (ineffectively) ordered them to delete all torrents that link to copyrighted material of copyright holders represented by BREIN, the court allowed BREIN’s claims.

In its earlier judgment, the court held that blocking the Pirate Bay was not a proportional measure. BREIN could have also asked Ziggo to release personal data of certain infringers so that BREIN could target these individual users. In contrast, the court yesterday argued that trying to sue individual Internet users has proven to be too difficult. Even if BREIN is able to trace IP-addresses of copyright infringing users, BREIN would have to request the ISPs to identify their users, which is something the ISPs have not done on a voluntary basis so far.

Besides blocking the Pirate Bay’s current IP-addresses and domain names, the court ordered the two ISPs to also block future Pirate Bay IP-addresses and domain names that are listed by BREIN.

XS4ALL has announced that it will appeal the case.

This post has been cross posted on the Herdict Blog.

Google Visualizes Free Flow of Information with New Tool

Today, Google introduced a new tool that tries to visualize what Google calls ‘disruptions in the free flow of information’. Their new Traffic Transparency Report Tool provides information about traffic to its services around the world. The tool gives insight into the availability of Google services per country. For instance, the graph shows that there has been very little traffic to YouTube in Iran since June 2009, which indicates that this Google service is inaccessible.

Google plans to replace their Mainland China service availability chart summarizing the accessibility to Google services in China with this new general tool. By replacing the chart, Google takes focus off China and broadens its perspective to the global accessibility of its services. Replacing the old chart also has an important disadvantage. By replacing qualifications like ‘fully accessible’, ‘partially blocked’ and ‘fully blocked’ by raw data, it gets harder to see whether and to which degree a service has been blocked. Google does add labels to certain drops in traffic, e.g. that YouTube has been inaccessible in China since March 2009, but only in cases of fully blocked services. From the China availability chart we know that Google Docs is ‘partially blocked’, this is however hard to see from the data in Google’s new traffic tool.

Google’s data gives welcome insight into the global availability of its services. However, it also takes away some clarity in regard to China’s blocking practices.

This post has been cross posted on the Herdict Blog.

Internet filter becomes an issue in Australian election campaign

The controversial plan to filter the Internet could be dead in the water after the Liberal-National Coalition, the main opposition group in the Australian parliament, declared it opposed the policy. The current Australian Government announced the filter two years ago as part of its cyber safety program to protect children from pornography and offensive material. With little over a week to go until the elections, the Internet filter has become a controversial issue that is dividing the political parties in Australia.

In their ‘plan for real action to protect Australian Families Online‘, the Liberals contend that an Internet filter would give parents “a false sense of security when it comes to the safety and wellbeing of their children” and that “the best protection parents can give children is guidance about appropriate internet usage and the dangers that can arise from inappropriate usage”. Furthermore, they argue that the filter would be easy to circumvent via proxy networks and Virtual Private Networks (VPNs).

Internet filtering will, however, not be completely out of the picture when the Liberal-National Coalition wins the upcoming elections. The Liberals do propose a filtering plan of their own: voluntary PC-Based Internet filtering software, which will be provided for free to all Australian families. “PC-based filters are much more dynamic and can assess a wider range of content than a static ISP level filter. They are increasingly easy to use, so that with the right technical support, parents can take control of their family’s Internet use”, say the Liberals in their plan.

In opposing mandatory filter plans, the Liberals join other parties that have long been opposed to this measure. “The Australian Greens have welcomed the Coalition’s announcement that it will not back the ALP’s proposed internet filter, effectively drawing a line under the hugely unpopular plan”, wrote the Green communications spokesman, Senator Scott Ludlam.

This post has been cross posted on the Herdict Blog.

Dutch ISP has no obligation to block access to the Pirate Bay

In May, I wrote that Dutch Entertainment Industry Trade Association (BREIN) wanted a Dutch ISP to block access to the Pirate Bay. In order to have general access to the Pirate Bay website blocked, BREIN filed suit against the largest Dutch ISP: Ziggo. Today the Court of First Instance ruled in favor of the Dutch ISP.

In October 2009, a Dutch court had already ordered the Pirate Bay to stop offering its torrent downloads to people in the Netherlands. The torrent website, however, never complied with that Dutch court ruling. Unable to stop the Pirate Bay at the source, BREIN then set sights on Dutch ISP Ziggo.

BREIN argued that Ziggo’s services were used by third parties to infringe on copyrights. Under Dutch law it is possible to have a claim against an online intermediary that provides services that are used to infringe copyrights. However, to successfully make such a claim, BREIN had to prove that Ziggo’s services were actually used to infringe copyrights. BREIN brought forward that 27% of all Ziggo subscribers download and upload copyrighted works via the Pirate Bay.

In its interlocutory judgment the Dutch Court of First Instance held that this was not enough, as there was no majority of Ziggo users downloading and uploading copyrighted works. Furthermore, the court held that blocking the Pirate Bay was not a proportional measure. BREIN could have also asked Ziggo to release personal data of certain infringers so that BREIN could target these individual users.

BREIN announced that it will appeal the decision.

The court decision is available here (in Dutch).

The Netherlands and France want code of conduct on Internet freedom

The Netherlands and France are taking the initiative to set up an international code of conduct on internet freedom. The Dutch foreign minister Maxime Verhagen and his French counterpart Bernard Kouchner agreed this in talks on Tuesday in Rotterdam.

More on the Official Dutch Foreign Affairs website.