Last month a bill crafted to crack down on pirate IPTV services was unanimously approved by Italy’s Chamber of Deputies.

If passed by the Senate, broadcasters through telecoms regulator AGCOM will have new powers to compel internet service providers to block pirate streams in a matter of minutes, potentially seconds. Site-blocking measures to deal with piracy are nothing new in Italy, but by narrowing the blocking window, the window for correcting errors is narrowed too.

Italy’s ‘Mega-Firewall’

The Association of Italian Internet Providers ( AIIP ) represents the interests of small to medium-sized ISPs in Italy. Given that ISPs are already required to implement AGCOM’s blocking instructions under the current regime, it follows that they will also have key responsibilities under the proposed rapid blocking system.

AIIP recently revealed that it had sent a memorandum to the authorities detailing its concerns over the current proposals, which are already in the final stages before becoming law.

President of AIIP, Giovanni Zorzoni, says that the objective appears to be the creation of a “mega-firewall” managed by AGCOM which will have the legal authority to compel internet service providers to implement it, regardless of the inherent risks.

“The creation of a homogeneous infrastructure based on a synchronous filtering system, capable of interfacing simultaneously with the operators offering access to the Internet, with the CDNs and with the Cloud operators, constitutes a single susceptible ‘point of failure’ to undermine the security and resilience of national networks,” Zorzoni warns.

Critical Need to Protect Critical Infrastructure

AIIP says it has always been in favor of copyright protection but says the speed at which the blocking proposals are being pushed through is a cause for concern. AIIP says that in advance of the Senate’s forthcoming examination, it is seeking a reassessment to ensure an adequate balance between the protection of intellectual property on one hand, and the protection of the internet ecosystem on the other.

AIIP reports progress in the form of a government commitment to evaluate the preparation of a “whitelist” of IP addresses and servers for the root zone of the Domain Name System (DNS) that can not be included in the blocking program. Since this would minimize the risks of “erroneously disabling critical systems,” AIIP hopes the government will fully implement the proposal.

Who Pays to Enforce Copyrights?

According to AIIP, internet service providers will be required to implement the new blocking system. It will entail “significant costs” that will fall first on ISPs, but ultimately trickle down to their customers.

“Precisely with respect to costs, the association highlights the unreasonableness of downloading them to access operators, third parties without any responsibility for the offenses, and therefore indirectly to Italian users, rather than to the subjects who will directly benefit from the new tool, i.e the rights holders,” AIIP says.

Not only are ISPs concerned that their customers will end up footing the bill for blocking, they’re also worried about who pays when it all goes wrong.

“We have asked the politicians to add an article to the text of the provision which excludes the legal liability of service providers in the event that they find themselves slavishly executing the Authority’s order,” Zorzoni says .

“Let’s imagine, for example, that while executing the filtering operation, the operator blocks IP addresses that carry not only illegal traffic but also legal traffic; or that what had been indicated as illegal in reality is not; here, in all these cases, it could be the service operators who get involved, for which we ask for the necessary protections.”

Precise Blocking to Date Doesn’t Eliminate Future Disasters

As reported last month, Italy’s blocking program currently covers more than 3,200 domains. Our analysis of those domains reveals legitimate reasons for blocking, all of which can be cross-referenced with transparency reports published by AGCOM.

The big question is what happens to that methodical and transparent system when decisions are made on the fly in an attempt to block access to more mobile pirated streams of live events.

Will AGCOM commit to publishing the details of servers and IP addresses that are subjected to blocking in the way that it currently does for domains? Will it publish the names of the companies who requested those online locations to be blocked so there’s complete transparency when something goes wrong?

The indication from AIIP that ISPs face potential liability suggests that both costs and risks are already being pushed down the line, in a direction that favors those who stand to benefit most from the new blocking regime.

That Italian internet users seem destined to indirectly pay for site blocking comes as no real surprise. If the project works as planned and pirate services do indeed become more difficult to access, it will be no surprise to see the prices of legitimate TV subscriptions rise either.

After all the hard work, why would any broadcaster that has paid for exclusivity not seek to maximize profits in a market with no competitors? Only time will tell if Italians will effectively get to pay for blocking twice, but it certainly can’t be ruled out.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Website blocking has become an increasingly common anti-piracy tool. ISPs in dozens of countries have been ordered by courts to block pirate sites.

More recently, these blocking requests have expanded to DNS providers as well. In Germany, for example, a court ordered DNS resolver Quad9 to prevent users from accessing the music piracy site Canna.to.

Court Ordered Cloudflare to Block Torrent Sites

As one of the larger DNS resolvers, Cloudflare is also under fire. In Italy, several music companies, including Sony Music, Warner Music, and Universal, took Cloudflare to court, demanding the blocking of three torrent sites on the company’s freely available 1.1.1.1 resolver.

Last year, an Italian court sided with the music companies . Through an interim order, the court ordered the blocking of kickasstorrents.to, limetorrents.pro, and ilcorsaronero.pro, three domains that are already blocked by ISPs in Italy following an order from local regulator AGCOM.

Cloudflare was unhappy with the court’s decision and immediately protested the injunction. The challenge failed last November when the court upheld its initial ruling , discarding Cloudflare’s objections.

Among other things, the court held that the blocking order doesn’t require the DNS resolver to surveil user activity, as Cloudflare challenged. A general monitoring obligation for online intermediaries would violate EU law, but the court determined that wasn’t relevant in this case.

“Cloudflare’s obligation to intervene to prevent the resolution of names does not derive from a general duty of surveillance but arises with the reporting of the specific illegal activity carried out through the public DNS service,” the court held.

Court Confirms DNS Blocking Requirement

The ruling was a setback for Cloudflare, but that wasn’t its only challenge. The American company filed an additional application where it requested clarification on the technical implementation of the blocking order. According to Cloudflare, blocking measures severely interrupt its DNS service, also in relation to competitors.

In a new ruling last week, the Court of Milan dismissed these arguments as well. According to the court, the original order already confirmed that blocking the site is technically feasible. Any issues regarding the technical efficiency of the measures are outside of the scope of the injunction proceedings.

The Court of Milan further highlighted that Cloudflare already blocks content on its DNS servers. For example, on its DNS resolver for families .

“The evidence on record seems to suggest that the appellant itself sets up general preventive verification systems on the content of the sites it serves, with regard to the monitoring of content unsuitable for minors or for crimes related to pedophilia,” the court noted.

Rightsholders Prepare Follow-Up Requests

The music companies are pleased with the court’s confirmation. According to music industry group IFPI, it sets an important precedent, confirming that online intermediaries, including DNS resolvers, can be required to take anti-piracy measures.

While the present order only applies to three sites, local telecoms regulator AGCOM has already ordered local ISPs to block thousands of piracy-related domains. This means that Cloudflare could also be subjected to follow-up requests.

Enzo Mazza, CEO of Italian music industry group FIMI , informs TorrentFreak that the music industry does indeed have plans to request additional blockades. Not just from Cloudflare, but also from other online intermediaries.

“We will continue our strategy based on blocking orders issued by AGCOM. This will involve new requests to Cloudflare and potentially other similar platforms not complying with the AGCOM blocking orders,” Mazza says.

Cloudflare Vowed to Fight

TorrentFreak reached out to Cloudflare for a comment on the dismissal, but we received no immediate response. The company previously said that it would do everything it could to protest DNS blocking orders, as these could affect other countries as well.

“Because such a block would apply globally to all users of the resolver, regardless of where they are located, it would affect end users outside of the blocking government’s jurisdiction,” Cloudflare noted .

Last September, the company said that it hadn’t blocked content through the 1.1.1.1 Public DNS Resolver yet. Instead, it relies on an “alternative remedy” to comply with the Italian court order.

Following the most recent court order, Cloudflare’s options to appeal against the interim injunctions are exhausted. The company could still file a lawsuit to challenge the merits of the blocking requirements, however.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

In a world where clear and independent reporting struggles to get heard in a sea of sensationalized clickbait, the German Heise group is generally recognized as a reliable and accurate news source.

For several days last week, an unknown number of visitors to heise.de were denied access to the company’s reporting. Instead, they found themselves redirected to Germany’s anti-piracy website blocking portal and statements that had no basis in fact.

Silently Blocked For Several Days

A Heise analysis, published Tuesday, reveals that the publication first learned of issues affecting access to its website last Friday, March 17. More messages from readers were received on Monday, and all reported the same thing. When attempting to access heise.de, web browsers responded with a certificate error and an explanation.

A bright orange splash page informed Heise readers that due to copyright infringement, Heise had been rendered inaccessible. The message usually confronts internet users who attempt to access a specific set of sites previously identified as facilitators of mass online copyright infringement.

Heise had no idea why the message was being displayed but did find a common denominator. All of the readers reporting problems were using the same internet service provider – 1&1 AG , a €3.9 billion telecoms group servicing 15.6 million fixed line and mobile customers.

DNS Tampering/Poisoning

Heise reports that its editors and system administrators were getting closer to the source of the problem on Friday but then a reader provided crucial information.

“He had set up his provider’s standard DNS server with the IP address 82.144.41.8 as the DNS server in his router,” Heise reports .

“This temporarily answered a question about www.heise.de with a CNAME entry that referred to the notice.cuii.info page. Other readers also confirmed that they were using the provider’s default DNS servers.”

Under normal conditions, web browsers accessing heise.de receive a response from the Domain Name System (DNS) to visit an IP address defined by the publication. In this case, Heise.de’s domain had a surprise CNAME (Canonical Name) entry that mapped heise.de to notice.cuii.info, the location of the orange splash screen carrying the copyright notification.

Since Heise itself is a 1&1 customer, staff tried to replicate the issues experienced by customers on a 1&1 DSL connection in the company’s editorial office. That ultimately failed and the redirect eventually disappeared on its own.

Heise Requests Answers, Receives None

In an effort to get to the bottom of the mystery, Heise said it contacted 1&1’s press office. The publication was informed that the internet service provider’s technical department would investigate but as things stand, Heise has received no response.

“The case remains a mystery: Only a small proportion of the queries to 1&1 DNS servers seem to be affected, and it is also not a regional problem. The tips came from Berlin and Hesse, among others,” Heise reports.

Starting from the position that the Domain Name System shouldn’t be tampered with, the question is why that appears not to be the case here. The short answer is that, with assistance from 1&1, Germany has implemented a DNS tampering system that enables rightsholders to redirect 1&1’s customers to a blocking page when they attempt to access specific pirate site domains.

CUII and Site-Blocking in Germany

Copyright Clearing House on the Internet (CUII) was launched in 2021 . It operates from cuii.info and its blocking notification page is located at notice.cuii.info, the subdomain/domain that appeared in Heise.de’s DNS CNAME records.

“The Copyright Clearing House on the Internet (CUII) is an independent body. It was set up by Internet access providers and rights holders in order to use objective criteria to check whether the blocking of access to a structurally infringing website is lawful,” CUII explains.

Current members of CUII: 1&1 AG (telecoms), German Book Traders’ Association, Federal Music Industry Association (BVMI), German Football League (DFL), Freenet DLS (telecoms), German Games Industry Association, Motion Picture Association (MPA), Sky Deutschland, STM (publishers), Telefónica Germany, Telekom Germany, German Film Producers Association (VDF), and Vodafone Germany.

“At the request of the rights holder, a review committee will examine and, if the requirements are met, recommend a DNS blocking of this structurally copyright-violating website,” the CUII website notes .

When a blocking decision is recommended, the matter is then referred to the German government’s Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) to confirm that a blockade will not violate net neutrality. Currently a small number of pirate sites are affected.

Code of Conduct

CUII’s stated purpose to recommend blocking of websites whose main purpose is to infringe copyright. The body is limited to handling “clear cases” where platforms have no real interest in supplying legal content.

Under its code of conduct, CUII observes the requirements laid down by the Court of Justice of the European Union to prevent internet service providers from encroaching on internet users’ freedom to access information online.

“For this reason, the Federal Network Agency is also involved in the process as the competent authority so that it can review the recommended blocking based on the requirements of the Net Neutrality Ordinance,” CUII notes.

Who Will Accept Responsibility?

Given all of the checks, processes and systems in place to prevent the blocking system from doing harm, what happened to Heise should’ve been impossible. As things stand, not only was it possible but nobody seems prepared to offer an explanation. That’s a big issue.

At the time of writing, Swiss DNS resolver Quad9 is being forced by a German court order to implement blocks after losing a case to Sony Music .

Sony Music is a member of BVMI, which in turn is a member of CUII. As things stand, a completely innocent website has lost traffic for 72 hours and the visitors who were redirected to the CUII blocking page were informed that Heise was blocked for copyright reasons.

Indeed, as per CUII’s own standards, Heise was labeled a “clear” infringer of copyrights with no interest whatsoever in providing legal content. That probably needs to be addressed with a clear explanation, sooner rather than later.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

In 2021, Sony Music obtained an injunction ordering DNS resolver Quad9 to block the popular pirate site Canna.to.

The injunction , issued by the District Court of Hamburg, required the Swiss DNS resolver to block its users from accessing the site to prevent the distribution of pirated copies of Evanescence’s album “ The Bitter Truth “.

Quad9 Appeals Site Blocking Injunction

The Quad9 Foundation fiercely opposed the injunction. The not-for-profit foundation submitted an appeal to the Court hoping to overturn the blocking order, arguing that the decision set a dangerous precedent.

The DNS resolver stressed that it doesn’t condone piracy. However, it believes that enforcing blocking measures through third-party intermediaries, that don’t host any content, is a step too far.

This initial objection failed; the Regional Court in Hamburg upheld the blocking injunction last December . However, this was only a preliminary proceeding and Quad9 promised to continue the legal battle, warning of a broad impact on the Internet ecosystem.

Sony Files Main Proceeding

After Sony’s preliminary victory, the music company initiated a main proceeding at the Leipzig court. This was the next step in the legal process and allowed both sides to provide more evidence and expert opinions.

Sony, for example, referenced earlier jurisprudence where Germany’s Federal Court ruled that services such as YouTube can be held liable for copyright infringement if they fail to properly respond to copyright holder complaints.

Quad9’s expert, Prof. Dr. Ruth Janal, contested this line of reasoning , noting that, under EU law, DNS resolvers shouldn’t be treated in the same fashion as platforms that actually host content

Quad9 is more akin to a mere conduit service than a hosting provider, Prof. Janal countered. Courts could instead require Quad9 to take action through a “no-fault” injunction, a process that’s already used in ISP blocking orders. In those cases, however, the intermediary isn’t held liable for pirating users.

Court Confirms DNS Blocking Requirement

After hearing both sides, the Regional Court of Leipzig ultimately handed a win to Sony. This means that Quad9 is required to block the music piracy site canna.to globally. If not, those responsible face a hefty fine, or even a prison sentence.

“The defendant is liable as a perpetrator because it makes its DNS resolver available to Internet users and, through this, it refers to the canna.to service with the infringing download offers relating to the music album in dispute,” the Court writes.

Judge Werner argues that Quad9 should have taken action when the copyright holder alerted it to a pirated copy of the Evanescence album. Its intentional failure to act makes the DNS resolver liable.

In its defense, Quad9 warned that blocking measures have a significant impact on its system architecture and performance. The Court wasn’t receptive to this argument, as the DNS resolver already actively blocks malware as one of its features.

Thus far, Quad9 has blocked Canna.to only for German users. However, the court order suggests that a global blocking order is reasonable and warranted, which is in line with Sony Music’s demands.

“It would also be harmless if, in accordance with the defendant’s argument, websites were blocked globally and irrespective of a specific jurisdiction for all Internet users who use the defendant’s DNS resolver.

“Even worldwide, no legitimate interest of Internet users in accessing this website with obviously exclusively illegal offers is apparent, so that the question of overblocking does not arise,” Judge Werner adds.

‘Absurdly Extreme’

Quad9 is disappointed with the verdict. According to the non-profit foundation, the court order opens the door to widespread global blocking orders that go far beyond the jurisdiction they’re issued in.

“Quad9 believes this is an exceptionally dangerous precedent that could lead to future global-reaching commercialized and political censorship if DNS blocking is applied globally without geographic limitations to certain jurisdictions.”

In addition, the DNS resolver believes that the Court mistakenly labels the service as a liable ‘wrongdoer’. Expanding liability to seemingly neutral services that don’t host any content is “absurdly extreme”, Quad9 notes.

“To put this into perspective, applying wrongdoer liability in this setting is akin to charging a pen manufacturer with fraud because a stranger forged documents while using the manufacturer’s writing utensil,” the Foundation writes.

Quad9 Continues to Fight

According to Quad9, Sony Music hand-picked a relatively small player with limited means, to obtain a favorable precedent. However, Quad9 isn’t giving up the fight. The company will appeal the judgment at the Dresden Court of Appeal, with help from the German Society for Freedom Rights (GFF).

GFF project coordinator Felix Reda , who previously served as a Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, believes that the Leipzig Regional Court has made a glaring error of judgment.

“It treats Quad9 as if the service itself were committing copyright infringement, even though it merely resolves a website name into an IP address,” Reda tells TorrentFreak.

“If one follows this reasoning, the copyright liability of completely neutral infrastructure services like Quad9 would be even stricter than that of social networks, whose copyright liability was extended by the controversial EU Copyright Directive.”

In common with Prof. Janal, Reda stresses that Quad9 should receive similar treatment as ISPs, instead of equating the service to a hosting provider.

“The Digital Services Act makes it unequivocally clear that the liability rules for Internet access providers apply to DNS services. We are confident that this misinterpretation of European and German legal principles will be overturned by the Court of Appeals,” he notes.

For now, Quad9 says it will comply with the court order. This means that it will block access to the Canna.to domain. Whether this will make much of a difference is unknown, as the site moved to the Canna-Power.to domain name a while ago.

—

A copy of the Regional Court of Leipzig’s order is available here (German, pdf) and a translated English copy can be found here (pdf)

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

In 2021, Sony Music obtained an injunction that ordered DNS resolver Quad9 to block a popular pirate site.

The injunction, issued by the District Court of Hamburg, required the Swiss DNS resolver to block access to a site that links to pirated music.

The name of the targeted site wasn’t revealed, but we deduced that Canna.to was the target. That site was also targeted in a voluntary blocking agreement previously signed by rightsholders and ISPs.

Quad9 Appeals, Sony Files Main Proceeding

The Quad9 Foundation fiercely opposed the injunction. The DNS resolver submitted an appeal to the Court hoping to overturn the blocking order, arguing that the decision sets a dangerous precedent.

The non-profit foundation stressed that copyrights should be respected online, but believes that enforcing blocking measures through third-party intermediaries goes a step too far.

The initial objection failed when the Regional Court in Hamburg upheld the blocking injunction. However, that was just a preliminary proceeding, and Quad9 was adamant it would continue the legal battle to prevent a broader impact on the Internet ecosystem.

Quad9 isn’t alone in viewing this as a crucial matter; Sony does too, albeit for different reasons. The music company went on to initiate a main proceeding at the Leipzig court, the next step in the legal process where both sides would be able to present more evidence and expert opinions.

Court Hears DNS Blocking Case

The matter was heard yesterday at the regional court in Leipzig, where both sides were able to present their arguments. While a decision is still forthcoming, Quad9 reiterated the importance of the case. If Sony wins, Quad9 believes that more and broader blocking actions may follow.

“Although this blocking applies only to Quad9’s services located in Germany, by bringing this court case to fruition, Sony Music — and those who may eventually follow — appear to be pushing the idea that they are above and beyond the principles of freedom, decentralization, and proportionality,” the DNS provider writes .

Quad9 argues that it’s merely passing on metadata; it doesn’t store or transfer any content. It’s in the best interests of the public at large to keep DNS resolvers universally accessible, and any curation should be done in the best interests of users, not corporations.

That last part could be relevant; Quad9 has positioned itself as a secure DNS resolver that gives users the option to block millions of malware-related connections and websites. In this case, however, it believes that court-ordered piracy blockades are not in the public interest.

“Recursive DNS is not an effective or reasonable place to impose external policies that are undesired or unrequested by the end user,” Quad9 notes.

“The ability of corporate entities to impose their will on unrelated third parties such as DNS resolution services creates a chilling effect which will reduce free information exchange, and introduces a significant risk of overreach and abuse against which there is little recourse.”

Expert Contrasts Key Piracy Cases

The DNS resolver is supported by the German Society for Freedom Rights (GFF), which commissioned Prof. Dr. Ruth Janal to prepare an expert opinion. The report concludes that intermediaries such as Quad9 should’t be held liable for third-party copyright infringement.

According to the professor, Sony Music’s arguments and the lower court’s decision equate the DNS resolver to content hosting platforms such as YouTube and Uploaded, whereas Quad9 is more akin to a mere conduit service, in the sense that it simply passes on bits.

Germany’s Federal Court previously ruled that hosting services can indeed be held liable for copyright infringement (e.g. YouTube/Uploaded ) but the same logic shouldn’t apply to a DNS provider, Professor Janal argues.

As a mere conduit service, courts could require Quad9 to take action through a “no-fault” injunction, a process that’s already used in ISP blocking orders. In those cases, however, the intermediary isn’t held liable for pirating users.

Specifically, a recent court order in Germany concerning Sci-Hub clarified that these types of blockades are only warranted if all other options have been exhausted. That includes going after a website’s hosting provider.

‘Sony Should Go After the Hosting Company’

GFF project coordinator Felix Reda , who previously served as a Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, notes that Sony failed to go after the hosting company in this case.

“Crucially, Sony did not seek an injunction against the EU-based hosting provider of the website at issue in its lawsuit against Quad9 either,” Reda informs TorrentFreak.

“The expert opinion by Prof. Ruth Janal finds that clearly, Quad9 is a type of mere conduit service like ISPs and must therefore be treated on the basis of the rules of no-fault injunctions, which only allow DNS blocking if all options to bring the infringement to an end at the source have been exhausted,” Reda adds.

The music company is yet to publicly share its view on the case. Sony and other rightsholders will likely put forward their own expert reports arguing that blocking is both warranted and reasonable.

High Stakes

There is no denying that the stakes are high in this case. Quad9 and GFF fear that if DNS providers can be held liable rather than there being “no-fault”, they may choose not to oppose blocking requests going forward.

“If DNS services were treated as wrongdoers, the financial risk of opposing a blocking request would be so high that they would have little other choices than to comply with any blocking request without taking the issue to court,” Reda says.

While there can be good reasons to block a site, doing so with court oversight helps to prevent over-blocking by considering the rights of service providers, copyright holders, and the general public.

For their part, rightsholders believe that third-party intermediaries should take responsibility. When DNS providers risk being held liable, action is guaranteed.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

A decade ago prominent voices issued dire warnings that blocking would “break the internet,” but of course, the internet survived, just as blocking advocates said it would.

That meant tacit permission for more piracy blocks, then faster blocks, and then both – with less involvement of the courts and unnecessary public oversight. And with the groundwork done, other countries could quickly implement the same kinds of systems because the Internet is doing just fine .

Those who issued those warnings a decade ago weren’t supporters of piracy – but they did know what was coming. Dozens of countries now have site-blocking systems in place and ISPs actively help to set them up. The recent moves against DNS providers are alarming but in time, they too will become the latest uncontested standard before implementation of the next incremental step, followed by the next.

Of course, it would be alarmist to even imply that blocking, censoring, or diverting other types of information might suit future governments worldwide. Uruguay certainly doesn’t think so. Freedom of expression is fully guaranteed for citizens, groups and the press, without any kind of censorship, including the internet . With some exceptions, apparently.

Uruguay Implements Site-Blocking

Following legal action by Fox Networks Group Latin America, in 2018 a criminal court in Uruguay instructed local ISPs to block popular sports streaming portal RojaDirecta.

The head of the Fox Networks’ anti-piracy unit described the ruling as “the beginning of judicial awareness on online piracy issues.” It was indeed just the beginning.

The government made its intentions clear in 2020 with Article 712 of Law No. 19,924, which envisioned the Communications Services Regulatory Unit (URSEC) taking the lead to ensure that allegedly infringing content was blocked by local Internet service providers, before it could reach consumers in Uruguay.

Time to Start Blocking

Uruguay’s Ministry of Industry, Energy and Mining (MIEM), issued a decree on October 25, 2022. It states that since it is “the obligation of the State to ensure the protection of intellectual work and copyright,” the introduction of a pirate site blocking regime is the government’s response.

“The issued decree was conceived to eliminate the broadcasting of television signals broadcast through the Internet or similar networks, for unauthorized commercial purposes, which violates laws 9,739, on literary and artistic property, and 17,616, on the protection of intellectual property,” a government statement reads.

Any complaints concerning illegal TV streams must be sent to the Communications Services Regulatory Unit (URSEC). If the regulator is satisfied, instructions will be issued to service providers to implement blocking or similar measures within four days.

What sets this system apart from those available in most other countries is that applications for blocking can be filed by companies that aren’t necessarily the ultimate rightsholders of TV shows or movies.

TV Services and Intermediaries

As Article 1 of Decree No. 345/022 explains, operators of licensed television services in Uruguay can report pirate services to URSEC for evaluation and if the regulator agrees, comprehensive blocking measures will follow.

[T]he holders of television services for subscribers may file a well-founded complaint with the URSEC, as an affidavit, so that the Unit can evaluate it and order, if applicable, the notification to platforms and/or independent intermediaries or the provision of a temporary electronic blockade that is necessary to prevent access from the national territory to IP addresses (Internet Protocol) and/or Internet domains (DNS) and/or URLs (Uniform Resource Locator), corresponding to specific offers of infringing products, services and/or content, as appropriate, that are used to develop such activities, under the sole responsibility of the person filing the complaint.

Notwithstanding the provisions of the preceding paragraph, when the platform and/or the independent intermediary have their own complaint mechanisms for the removal of content and/or sales offers of allegedly illegal products and/or services, the owner or representative of the complainant, may appeal through the means provided by the intermediary, in order to assert their rights through the fastest and most effective means.(Translated from Spanish)

The decree’s Article 3 details the rest of the process, including that assumed pirate services will initially face blocking for up to 30 days in advance of a judicial review.

Blocking vs. Freedom of Expression

The Latin American and Caribbean Internet Address Registry (LACNIC) appreciates the new blocking regime is designed to protect content from piracy. However, it has fears that freedom of expression could be a casualty due to an absence of skills to implement accurate blocking.

“Recently the state published a decree in which the authorities can block sites that violate intellectual property rights, in essence: television signals that are transmitted illegally,” says Oscar Robles Garay, executive director of LACNIC.

“It’s okay to protect the intellectual property of others, but sometimes when you do that without enough technical expertise, other rights can be affected: websites, government sites, schools and more, which is clearly not the focus of these measures.”

A decision on whether live streams should be blocked within 30 minutes of a complaint has been delayed until next year but, given moves in other regions, implementation seems is only a question of time.

After that, requests for complex dynamic injunctions will likely follow and when they aren’t considered effective enough, interference with DNS records seems the next likely blocking candidate. By then, even more aggressive blocking options will become available, most likely across 45 to 50 countries, covering just hundreds of millions of internet users, and countless ISPs and intermediaries.

When none of these measures return the required results, tougher measures will undoubtedly follow. But whatever they are, the internet will never, ever break. Promise.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Given the extreme financial power and political leverage held by the world’s largest entertainment companies, most obstacles can be pushed aside or simply rolled over. But exceptions do exist.

In the fight against piracy, not only do the smallest gains require an unusual effort but they’re increasingly dependent on the cooperation of third parties, usually those in the online tech sector. If these companies can’t be convinced to commit business resources to the piracy war voluntarily, lawsuits and mandatory conscription can lie ahead.

The message – that internet companies must tackle piracy or be held responsible for taking part in it – is nothing new. Internet service providers, websites, search engines, hosting providers, domain companies, social media services, and advertising companies are all considered part of the problem.

From terminating allegedly infringing users and implementing copyright filters, to due diligence, website blocking, and running a search engine, tech companies can find themselves being held responsible when third parties upset the business models of other third parties. This new commercial reality isn’t just spreading, it has global aspirations.

Control The Phone Book, Control Communications

A presentation prepared for the recent Fifteenth Session of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Advisory Committee on Enforcement begins with a brief explainer of the Domain Name System (DNS) and how it works. The fundamental importance of DNS to the internet is glaringly obvious.

So that humans don’t have to remember thousands of IP addresses to access their favorite websites, the DNS system holds all of those numbers in a database and matches them to more easily remembered domain names. When domain names are entered into a browser (Google.com, for example), DNS converts the domain into an IP address and the page appears. If done properly, it’s completely invisible.

At the time of writing, a couple of billion websites rely on the ability of the DNS system to carry out these conversions. The problem for rightsholders is that some of those sites facilitate access to their copyrighted works, and with easy-to-remember names such as thepiratebay.org, they are too easy for people to find.

Following legal action, ISPs in dozens of countries are now required to prevent their customers from accessing sites like thepiratebay.org. Since ISPs carry their own copy of the DNS ‘phone book’, they look up thepiratebay.org, find the IP address allocated to it, and exchange it for a completely useless one.

Rightsholders like this arrangement. Critics say that internet infrastructure shouldn’t tell lies to its users.

So Why Such Drastic Action? FMovies….and a Few Others

If The Pirate Bay’s resistance to shutdown helped to fuel the early days of pirate site blocking, sites like FMovies may end up shouldering the blame for more extreme measures.

With close to 87 million visits per month via desktop alone, FMovies is not only massive but quite possibly the most comprehensive pirate VOD-style streaming site available today. It operates many domains in various jurisdictions under multiple brandings, and isn’t confined to the mainstream movie and TV show ‘niches’ either.

Hollywood companies have forced ISPs in several countries to tamper with the site’s local DNS entries after obtaining injunctions or voluntary cooperation. The site’s traffic continues to grow because it’s still online – DNS tampering cannot change that, not for FMovies or any other site

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the presentation is that it talks about options for action against DNS, yet reveals the countries where FMovies has infrastructure, names the companies allegedly supporting that infrastructure, and puts their locations on a map.

So what action could be taken by DNS service providers to take FMovies offline, render it inaccessible, or even make it marginally less successful than it currently is? The presentation has some ideas but before we come to them, it might be worth looking at the slide again.

Why would meddling with the DNS system, which has zero ability to remove content, be preferred over actually removing content ?

OVH and M247, two companies listed as serving FMovies, are very large hosting operations and couldn’t hide even if they wanted to. The fact that they are in the EU renders them legally ‘accessible’ too, in the event that they are indeed playing host to one of the world’s largest stashes of premium infringing content. They probably have no idea that’s the case, of course, and being cash-rich their lawyers would be very happy to explain that, in court if necessary.

But the real problem here isn’t who has the ability to fight back, it’s that DNS interference has always been portrayed as a tool of last resort, something to be used when everything else fails. The presentation to the WIPO Enforcement Committee even states that DNS resolvers are completely incapable of removing infringing content.

“The legal frameworks and case law lack a clear picture at international and national levels. Case law mainly discusses liability as secondary infringers if DNS providers serve structurally copyright infringing websites. This usually requires intent, which could be established by a notice,” it reads.

Sony Music certainly hopes that will be enough.

Quad9 DNS Resolver Dispute

In Germany, Swiss-based DNS resolver Quad9 is now in direct legal conflict with Sony Music after refusing to cooperate in the label’s campaign to have a music piracy site blocked. Sony took the case to court, arguing that Quad9 has a duty of care to block the site – a site that doesn’t carry infringing content itself but links to content hosted on another site (or sites), somewhere else entirely.

Perhaps with an eye on the type of intent mentioned above, Sony did indeed give Quad9 clear notice of the infringement. Unfortunately for Quad9, Germany sets the bar for involvement very low indeed, which makes it the perfect venue for this kind of lawsuit.

Under the legal concept of Störerhaftung, otherwise known as disturbance or disruptor liability, a disruptor is someone who is involved in any way with the distribution of illicit content. As involvement goes, Quad9’s role is either extremely minimal or absolutely crucial, depending on perspective.

Sony currently appears to have the upper hand ( 1 , 2 ) and although it’s not over yet( 1 ), some liability protection has already been stripped away. According to a German regional court, since Quad9 only triggers IP address queries to DNS servers and transmits no information, it does not qualify for ‘mere conduit’ liability exemptions.

Cloudflare Ordered to Block Pirate Sites

If Quad9 loses, any order compelling it to block will be part of the package waved around in other jurisdictions to achieve the same goals: do providers want to cooperate now, or perhaps they prefer legal conscription? In the EU, this type of approach has a tendency to spread, where one ruling leads to another and then becomes the accepted norm as intermediaries concede defeat.

And momentum is building.

In July, an Italian court ordered Cloudflare to block three torrent sites on its public DNS resolver 1.1.1.1. Music industry group FIMI said that since the Cloudflare service helps people to access pirate sites, Cloudflare becomes part of the piracy problem. The court agreed and issued a preliminary injunction against Cloudflare.

While copyright holders have shown their intent in no uncertain terms, Cloudflare is drawing its own lines in the sand. While it has been compelled to block in both Italy and in Germany , Cloudflare recently said it will fight any ‘global’ blocking requests if they target its 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver.

Less Aggressive Options

If DNS entities get tired of the lawsuits, it’s possible they could be tempted by so-called non-fault injunctions, the presentation suggests. Popular in the UK and India, the idea is that intermediaries are named as respondents in blocking applications but copyright holders have no intention to sue them.

Everyone involved acknowledges that the intermediaries are in a good position to help out and that everyone’s rights should be respected under the principle of proportionality. This balances copyright holders’ rights, the intermediaries’ rights, and the rights of internet users to access information. The important thing is that there is no conflict and as long as applicants follow procedure, blocking tends to get the court’s seal of approval.

Another favored option doesn’t involve the courts at all because direct agreements between copyright holders and intermediaries do all of the heavy lifting. By designating groups such as the MPA as ‘Trusted Notifiers’, DNS entities could follow the lead of two domain registries and decide what should be blocked in private.

“Proactive measures by DNS providers to discourage online infringement and other illegal activity should be adopted, such as ensuring accuracy of registrant/WHOIS data. Voluntary reactive measures, such as trusted notifier arrangements, should be encouraged,” the presentation concludes ( pdf ).

WIPO says that the views in the presentation on DNS providers and resolvers are those of the authors and are not necessarily shared by WIPO members. The authors are leading Germany copyright attorney Jan Bernd Nordemann and Dean S. Marks, former Deputy General Counsel and Chief of Global Content Protection at the MPA.

Image Credit: Jimmy Nilsson Masth ( Unsplash License )

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

As pirate site blocking programs expand around the world, Denmark already has more than 15 years of experience in this branch of copyright protection.

After blocking Russian MP3 site AllofMP3 in 2006, Danish rightsholders haven’t looked back. The big drive now is how to streamline the site-blocking process so that piracy platforms can be hit as quickly and as comprehensively as possible.

Part of the problem is that to have pirate domains blocked, rightsholders need to have authorization from the court. This can be obtained by obtaining an injunction against an ISP but when a single ISP is the target, other ISPs are not legally required to do anything.

In 2014, rightsholders and ISPs solved these problems by signing a Code of Conduct which ensures that when one ISP is ordered to block, others follow voluntarily. But in the world of site-blocking, there’s always more to be done.

Dynamic Blocking….And Beyond

Since blocking pirate sites is a commitment rather than a one-off effort, Denmark’s site-blocking regime also tackles domain switches and proxy sites. This so-called ‘dynamic blocking’ doesn’t require a new court process. Anti-piracy group Rights Alliance has the authority to identify any new domains and forward them to ISPs for blocking, a process that will now be accelerated.

The Conduct of Conduct (CoC) that provides the framework for blocking has been revised over the years, to accommodate the changing piracy landscape. Earlier this month it was updated again, hoping to shut down domains more quickly than before.

“[T]he illegal market on the Internet is constantly and rapidly developing, which is why it has been necessary to carry out a slight revision of the CoC agreement,” Rights Alliance explains.

“This implies greater flexibility and automation of the processes in the agreement, which should make it easier for both the Rights Alliance and the members of the Telecom Industry to block illegal websites.”

The plan is for ISPs to block new domains within seven days, using automation to retrieve updated lists before carrying out the usual DNS blocking.

How Will The System Work?

Both Rights Alliance and Teleindustrien (Telecommunications Industry Association in Denmark) have published copies of the new Code of Conduct but neither explain how the new system will work. Indeed, the CoC contains a paragraph that explains that a section detailing the individual steps, procedures and criteria, has been withheld “in order to achieve the purpose of the agreement.”

Given that Denmark’s blocking program is DNS-based, it’s trivial for ISPs to modify local DNS entries to redirect pirate site visitors to Share With Care (SWC), a portal designed to encourage pirates back on to the legal path of authorized content services.

Somewhat intrigued by the apparent need for secrecy, we took a closer look at Teleindustrien and to our surprise, found the complete opposite.

Complete Blocking Transparency

It appears that when ISPs are ordered to block domains for any reason, Teleindustrien goes public with three things: the laws under which the blocking was ordered, who ordered the blocking, and which domains were blocked in response.

For example, the telecoms industry group details recent blocks associated with the Ukraine conflict (including RT.com and sputniknews.com) and publishes the domains to an easily downloadable .csv file – perfect for ISPs looking to implement DNS blocking.

Another .csv file is published for gambling site domains deemed illegal in Denmark, 183 according to the latest batch

The data relating to Denmark’s pirate site blocking program reveals how quickly it has expanded over the years. In 2017, Danish ISPs were blocking around 100 pirate sites , a figure that jumped to 478 in 2020.

The latest .csv file containing the list of blocked piracy domains is dated September 27, 2022. It contains 892 URLs – some of them domains in their own right and others representing sub-domains on various sites dedicated to unblocking.

It’s unclear how the new streamlining provisions in the revised Code of Conduct can beat pulling a plain text file from a website but Teleindustrian also provides the data in PDF format for the Adobe fans out there.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.