British Telecom ordered to blacklist Usenet search engine

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/07/british-telecom-ordered-to-blacklist-usenet-search-engine.ars

by otherwise • 15 years ago

33 16 15 years ago

"BT argued that when its subscribers access Newzbin2, BT is acting as a mere conduit for their network activity. Therefore, BT said, these users were not "using [BT's] service to infringe copyright." But the judge rejected this interpretation, holding that "users are using BT’s service to infringe copyright," and that he therefore has the authority to grant the injunction."

Isn't that like getting an injunction for Youtube because users are using it to view infringing videos? Where does it stop?

UK judges don't seem very experienced with copyright cases. It seems they have a pretty simplistic view of things. If "it looks bad" then it must be bad, so they rule against it.

jackpirate• 15 years ago

UK judges don't seem very experienced with copyright cases.

I'm sure they're plenty experienced. Their experience just isn't what we want it to be.

As they say, Practice makes permanent, not perfect.

chunkyslink• 15 years ago

I would agree.

Its also the case that how copyright law is interpreted is different from country to country.

hippich• 15 years ago

hm. Since source code available, just deploy site to new server under new domain name. If for every domain blocked Hollywood lawyers will need to ask court - this become unprofitable soon =))

rjd2• 15 years ago

Probably not, depending ont he final wording of the court decision a reasonable demonstration its the same site the same ruling could be applied without going back to court.

aes256• 15 years ago

Surely such a demonstration would require another court order, though? If not, who is to judge the extent to which two sites are the same site?

If the Newzbin source code is released — and to be clear the issue here is not the software itself but what people do with it — and a hundred Newzbin clones pop up overnight with entirely different branding, domains, hosting arrangements, etc., surely one court order against Newzbin is not enough to force ISPs to block all of them?

To reiterate, the software behind Newzbin is entirely legitimate. Passing a court order that enables blocking orders for all websites using the same software would be akin to one that enabled the blocking of all Wordpress blogs because one such blog had been used for illegal purposes.

The thin edge of a very large wedge indeed...

trotsky• 15 years ago

But within months, Newzbin's source code began circulating on the Internet, and anonymous parties with servers in Sweden relaunched the service at the same domain.

This colors the event somewhat oddly. To be clear, once the service was defeated in court in reopened being run by people unknown who had a starkly similar administration style, the website operated under all of its old domain names, all of the software was the same, the entire multi-year database was the same, all user accounts existed and existing passwords worked, and existing credit balances (you paid a certain amount per month) existed and were honored by the new admins.

So, uh, yeah. While it doesn't excuse the behavior of trying to get it blocked like CP, it does somewhat explain it. You can't thumb your nose so completely at the process and not expect to piss people off to the point that they'll continue hunting you.

jasonjei• 15 years ago

While the US doesn't exactly have an untarnished record with free speech, at least it is a constitutional right. The UK, on the other hand, doesn't guarantee freedom of speech and has in recent years banned certain forms of literature. Michael Savage is banned from entering the UK and was compared to violent religious and racial zealots, even though he never told anyone to use violence.

From Wikipedia: > "On 6 December 2007, Samina Malik was convicted of possessing literature deemed illegal by the Terrorism Act 2000. The illegal literature included poems she had written. She received a nine-month suspended jail sentence.[40] This case has been condemned by Hizb ut-Tahrir[41][42][43]"

ashconnor2• 15 years ago

Although the UK doesn't have a constitution, Freedom of Speech is guaranteed in Article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998 and protected by the European Convention on Human Rights.

That being said, the number of clauses in which freedom of speech is 'restricted' means that the UK doesn't strictly have freedom of speech. You are even free to speak as you want or not. The UK falls into the latter category.

radu_floricica• 15 years ago

Yelling fire in a theater? Absolutes are of no use in this kind of discussion... better to go with "more" and "enough".

regularfry• 15 years ago

Part of the problem with this ruling is the abuse of Cleanfeed, BT's blocking system. There are a lot of people in the UK who were only ever happy with Cleanfeed and the IWF being in existence for as long as their scope was limited to the "worst of the worst", clearly illegal content.

This ruling is why, if you're going to have a system like this, it's not enough to simply say "Well, it'll only ever be used for X. Trust us." You have to go through the effort to enshrine that limitation in legislation.

Tyrannosaurs• 15 years ago

It's even bad for people who supported Cleanfeed as a solution to those "worst of the worst" problems as this is going to raise a lot of questions about it's use at all.

turbojerry• 15 years ago

Users will use Tor to get around this, so is the order a joke or will BT have to shut down all its internet business (most broadband internet in the UK is just rebranded BT ADSL)?

British Telecom ordered to blacklist Usenet search engine

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