Anti-Piracy Group Seeks ISP Level Block of Movie Streaming Portal

enigmax
November 5, 2010
69
Kino.to,
UPC,
VAP
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The Hollywood-backed anti-piracy outfit VAP has announced that it will apply for a court injunction to force a major Internet service provider to block a popular movie streaming portal. UPC, the ISP that has refused to cave into 3 strikes demands from the music industry in Ireland, says it will not block the site Kino.to on behalf of the movie industry. VAP says it hopes the test case will pave the way for further site blockades.

Forcing Internet service providers to take responsibility for the actions of others is becoming an increasingly popular activity for the music and movie industries. On the one had there is huge pressure for ISPs to take action against their own customers in the form of warning letters and notifications, and on the other to provide a censorship service for websites that the entertainment companies would rather the world didn’t have access to.

The latest attempt at blocking a website comes from Verein für Anti-Piraterie der österreichischen Film und Videobranche (VAP) – the anti-piracy association of the Austrian film and video industry.

In October, VAP approached several ISPs with a request to block Kino.to, a popular movie streaming portal which ranks in the top 50 sites of both Germany and Austria. Kino.to hosts no illicit content itself but indexes material stored on file-hosters and other streaming services.

Kino

More than 1500 IP addresses and nine domains are present on a VAP blocking wish list including MegaVideo.com, duckload.com, Freeload.to, Speedload.to and Archive.to.

Internet Service Providers Austria (ISPA) responded robustly to the request on behalf of their members, stating clearly that ISPs are mere carriers of information and that the request has no legal basis.

“It would be better for the rights holders to think about innovative business models,” said Secretary-General Andreas Wildberger.

Undeterred, at a press conference this week VAP announced that it now intends to force ISPs to cede to their wishes. They say they will do this by singling out one ISP in particular, UPC, to block Kino.to and other domains via a court injunction.

“Since the operators [of the 'infringing' services] cannot be found, we will hold the Internet service providers to account,” said a VAP spokesman.

In common with its division in Ireland (there it refused to cooperate with 3 strikes demands from the music industry), UPC is standing its ground.

“UPC enables its customers to access the Internet, but has no obligation and no right to selection or examination of the content provided therein,” the company said in a statement.

Werner Müller of VAP said the aim of the test case against UPC is to see whether the blocking of sites with “consistently illegal content” can be enforced via the courts.

The Pirate Party of Austria said it “is appalled but not surprised” at what it describes as a “Chinese-style” censorship attempt.

“It’s not about censorship, but rather the imposition of economic interests,” said VAP lawyer Andreas Manak.

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B54rant

Hope UPC win this one. “UPC enables its customers to access the Internet, but has no obligation and no right to selection or examination of the content provided therein,” this sums is all up perfectly.
pm

They’re trying again! Should we see a strike on VAP in the same way ACAPOR was hit?

These anti-piracy groups honestly think they are doing something good. They’re passionate but maybe, just maybe, a little bit misguided. Check out some of ACAPOR’s emails translated here: http://peerauthority.com/acapor1
Yea

Thank god its not xhustler!
Yea

Thank god its not xhamster>
f**K Gene Simmons

Seems another battle of fail brought to by the people that are screwing the artist/public!!!!!

I believe this day and age the Internet the best marketing tool out there people that live like cavemen yeah that’s the riaa and the mpaa and whatever other f*cked associations that deteriorate anything or anyone that helps the artist/production etc etc, would at-least realise that people aren’t stealing we are sharing and setting a buzz.
When i like a show and miss episodes.I have the Internet to catch up what is so wrong about that?
when i want to her a certain song, but don’t want a whole entire album and feel like ditching out $1131233232424442 bucks for a c.d.
what’s so wrong about that?

These associations are criminals more than the public.Taking advantage not only bye ripping off the artist that make music or movie’s but anything they can to harm people.The Internet the worlds people need to fight back ,start suing them lets take them down.
If you are an artist like me don’t let the riaa and mpaa rip you off/brainwash you.These horrible organisations need to be taken down 1 by 1.
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Lex

““Since the operators [of the 'infringing' services] cannot be found, we will hold the Internet service providers to account,” said a VAP spokesman.”

Wow, really? That seems a bit, lazy and pathetic, really.
Paul

They are going to ruin the internet if this keeps up. There is only so much ISP’s are going to stand for.

Why do they seem to think the internet is theirs and they can come along and shut down, bully, whatever you want to call it, sites just when they like? The internet isn’t theirs, it’s ours, the people. I hope ISP’s start standing up to their bullying and tell them to f*** off.

The MPAA RIAA etc really need to change their business practices and stop the bullying, otherwise it will pave the way for any company to start applying for court orders to shut down sites for petty reasons. Soon, you won’t be allowed links in case it leads to a movie clip or something.
Johnny

Never heard of kino.to before.

I guess they’ll profit from this free advertisement by the MAFIAA.
anon

nice streisand effect MAFIAA, looks like i have some new sites to check out this weekend :) keep up the free advertising geniuses :):):):)
Carefully Watching

If a site gets blocked I really don’t think its the end of the world. What scares me as the ruling will set precedents then the situation will spiral out of control. I rather have one law breaker but retain free speech and zero censorship then to become china.
anon

@7/paul
domnt worry paul, the second the the ISP’s cave well be going wireless, i would LOVE to cut any corporate power out of the internet anyway, for the people by the people, thats what the internet should be
Thys

“Since the operators [of the 'infringing' services] cannot be found, we will hold the Internet service providers to account,” said a VAP spokesman.

Rofl, so if you cannot find the killer, you accuse a victim?
Anon

@Thys it’s more like if you can not find the killer, you accused who ever owned the highway to victims house. If the highway would stop and see what every single person was doing driving down that highway then that person would have never killed anyone.
Anonymous

This is like someone who drives a car and runs someone over and kills them.

Then, instead of trying to catch the killer, someone decides to sue the road.

Makes sense if you’re a stupid f@ck like VAP I guess.
Anonymous

Prepare the LOIC!!!
Anonymous

WE ARE RETARDED
WE AR GROUPS OF RETARDED KIDS
EXPECT RETARDED
aForce

Thanks TF for the link!

VAP/BREIN/MAFIAA/RIAA =
Bucket load of FAIL

It makes no sense forcing a block by ISP if site owners can not be found. Time to break the money driven dictatorship of the copyricht MAFIAA.

The anons can not be beaten. We will prevail. Expect us…
zan

thx VAP for clueing me in about this site.

duly bookmarked.

PS) VAP can you publish the rest of the sites you want blocking, might be more ive missed ;)
Reggit

“It’s not about censorship, but rather the imposition of economic interests,” said VAP lawyer Andreas Manak.

- Sooooo, the business model starts to fail, and rather than compete and make a new business model, you try and get laws passed to change the WORLD so that the shoddy old business model can continue to ‘barely’ function….hmmm, call Oxford, we have a new definition of insanity!

- Why do these people seem to think the world revolves around them? Life is change, get with the times or go the way of the dinosours.
Anonymous

WE ARE RETARDS
WE ARE GROUPS OF RETARDED KIDS
EXPECT RETARDED
Anonymous

What the f#ck is the matter with the movie industry why don’t they get on board with the internet. Where is a legal movie streaming store?

They are losing billions because they refuse to embrace technology and figure out a way to use it to make money.

If redbox can make tons of money renting flicks for $1 why can’t the f#cking dickheads in hollystupid do the same with streaming

Answer they are retarded and stuck on an old outdated model.
Anonymous

WE ARE RETARDS
WE ARE A GROUP OF RETARDED KIDS
EXPECT RETARDED
Anonymous

“Werner Müller of VAP said the aim of the test case against UPC is to see whether the blocking of sites with “consistently illegal content” can be enforced via the courts.”

Oh ya? I you ask me we need to kill all these parasites at VAP as a matter of public safety.
Predator

Let’s K ill them all!
Dickbutt

DICKBUTT!! dickbutt.
traum

12 Nov 05, 2010 at 17:07 by Thys
“Since the operators [of the 'infringing' services] cannot be found, we will hold the Internet service providers to account,” said a VAP spokesman.

Rofl, so if you cannot find the killer, you accuse a victim?

No, accuse weapon maker and if it´s fail maybe… who?!

Will wait anon targets!
Another Anon

I know the highway analogy has been done before, but here’s my two cents. Living in a corrupt state in a corrupt country (Illinois), we have to pay at certain tollways to access roads. It would be unreasonable to burden the tollway employees with the responsibility of making sure no one does anything illegal on the road. That’s what State Trooper are for. Having ISPs play cops isn’t their job. This VAP group needs to just go away.
Dingo_RG

Well, if the obsolete entertainment industry (MPAA, RIAA, VAP, etc.) is UNABLE to adapt and innovate to new business models and new technologies, then, they must disappear for good.

I mean, any business model based in controlling copies of information doesn’t make any sense in these days.
Gnarledreaper

There’s 9 comments spouting unintelligible garbage with bad grammar, i wish idiots who can barely use a keyboard would find something better to do.
Anonymous

MPAA and RIAA are locked in a viscious downward spiral.

The more they persecute their members customers by way of prosecutions (often wrongful), censorship and invasions of privacy, the more their alienate their members from their customers. The less the customers buy.

You would think they would realise the cause and effect by the career dissipation of many of their artists who the RIAA (and others) have got to promote their message. The Corrs and Lilly Allen spring immediately to mind.

I am also always aggrieved by the fact that the MPAA and RIAA never acknowledge much of the decline in their members product sales can be attributed to competition for consumer wallets from Leisure software sales, cable and satelite TV and of course the internet where at any given time there are a few million people playing simple but highly addictive (if inane) free games on facebook. Of which many of their members also have vast interests.

Year on year figures show that consumers are spending more than ever on leisure media yet they are still not happy.
me

It really makes me mad when these companies think they have the right to decide what sites everyone else should have access to and that their needs should override everyone elses just because they make music or films.
Anonymous

It looks like Archive.to mentioned in the article is already dead as just shows a holding page full of sponsored links
anonymous

best of luck to UPC. yet again, the entertainment industries expect their wishes (dirty work) to be done by other companies. biggest problem is, however, that along with all other ISPs, they have too little clout by them self. had their have been an amalgamation of ISPs which would have exceeded the size of the industries and had a better chance of standing up to them , this singling out of one ISP as a victim would not be happening. too late now. the attitude of ‘it wont happen to us’ is a reality. unless, of course, this is all a sham to make customers think that ISPs are on their side. then when shit hits fan, they look to be in the clear!
bundito

looks like operation payback has its next target
Flying Dutchman

Obvious trollz are obvious, don’t feed them ok? thx…

Dear VAP/MAFIAA,

“sigh” Not again… Please GTFO or die in a fire. If ISP’s DID comply with the MAFIAA’s demands, like half the internet would be censored. Stop being lazy F*cks and make a new Business model like any other company/Industry or do everyone a favor and file for bankrupsy. I wish you all well (not).

Kind Regards,
Just a random guy on the Interwebs,

PS: Did I already mention the following? UPDATE YOUR F*CKING BUSSINESS MODELS!
Anonymous

…read it last week! Big laugh @ VAP and fuck WKO!

…but in court they will never win!
Anonymous

blaming UPC for kino.to is like blaming a weapon dealer for a bank robbery!
Anonymous

Ima charge my lazerz! :D
Anonymous

Obvious trolls are obvious.

I support this ISP!
Anonymous

VAP =
Virgin Anal Probing
Hey I got a broomstick for you ready to go
Anonymous

“They say they will do this by singling out one ISP in particular, UPC, to block Kino.to and other domains via a court injunction.”

Isn’t using one group of people/individual as an example an abuse of court?
Jeff

The comments from the one Anonymous (#22 & others) go beyond trolling and approach spamming.

I think they need to be dealt with by TF. One or two comments of this type are just trolling, but when every third comment is along the same lines, that’s spamming to me.
Anonymous

Anyone else get the feeling this fail attempt at a troll may be coming from VAP or MAFIAA XD
Arthur Jensen

What type of person would laugh at the less well off?
Only a child could shrug the injustice
of life, for an approving ‘laugh’ from peers.
@56 Die in a fire.
TerribleTony

Thank TF for the additional bookmark, much appreciated. However, I must note the hard work of the copyright industry in pointing this site out to me, without them I would have missed out completely.

Nice one!
CEEA

UPC won another fight against Industry in Ireland.
Hope here in Austria they also win it.

Go Go Go Chello/Inode (from UPC)

:)
Pirate Advert

You got to love how their anti-piracy action becomes great piracy advertising. Even TBP would not be as popular without their help.

So today many people learn about online movie streaming. Tomorrow it will be ten times as popular and in a month… our daily bread and butter.

Thanks VAP and TF.
old timer

I know already that they have DNS servers for the “darknet” but what is to stop people from developing something that is outside of the US control of the DNS servers. Publish a set of IP’s for DNS servers that are banned by US DNS servers, then it wouldn’t matter. The list is updated and as long as people know where the list is or can goggle it then who cares about censorship (I am not advocating pirating just non-censorship).
Anonymous

I hope they succeed. There is no excuse for KNOWING a site is offering illegal content, and still distributing it to subscribers.

The ISP cannot claim to be a “dumb pipe” once it has been notified of illegal activity on its network.

The responsible thing is to block it.
zarien.

I know the highway analogy has been done before, but here’s my two cents. Living in a corrupt state in a corrupt country (Illinois), we have to pay at certain tollways to access roads. It would be unreasonable to burden the tollway employees with the responsibility of making sure no one does anything illegal on the road. That’s what State Trooper are for. Having ISPs play cops isn’t their job. This VAP group needs to just go away.

hell ya i agree with u also from the same state
Binary Bandit

““Since the operators [of the 'infringing' services] cannot be found, we will hold the Internet service providers to account,” said a VAP spokesman.”

They keep going further up the ladder to find ways to stop infringement and the ‘making available’ of files. They need to go to the very top…the main enablers. If they didn’t release the music or movies, we would not download them. That would stop so called “piracy” in its tracks! lol
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Anonymous

“AP says it hopes the test case will pave the way for further site blockades. ”

“Aka mafiaa uses all world’s legal system against people instead of being fair and doing one thing in one place and not trying to force their restrictive controlling manipulative ways everywhere

Kino.to hosts no illicit content itself but indexes material stored on file-hosters and other streaming services.

Aka legal but the way the mafiaa rolls, their account would make google illigal also
Anonymous

@59 “I hope they succeed. There is no excuse for KNOWING a site is offering illegal content, and still distributing it to subscribers.
The ISP cannot claim to be a “dumb pipe” once it has been notified of illegal activity on its network. The responsible thing is to block it.
”

Ok next up, no internet because they shut one down, people just move to another place… It happens every day and with all the “site has been suspended” crap going on, people are using tor and freenet and ip2p now & building better stuff that can’t be taken down. Translation: Take it down, we will build it up better, more secure, more anon.
ano nym ous

@ 59

“There is no excuse for KNOWING a site is offering illegal content,”

kino.to isn’t offering anything. They only got links.
Ninja

And the history repeats itself. Then we go talking about roads, cars and drug dealers. And they [usually] get owned in the places that there’s sanity left.

Heh…
Dia

“It’s not about censorship, but rather the imposition of economic interests,”

What he’s trying to say is that “unlike in China, this censorship is for the good of the industry, and not for the good of the people”
Enough is enough

Dear ISP’s of the world.

Since many of you are phone companies too, here is a suggestion: You all have your customer TOS (terms of service). I suggest to create one that states “It is not allowed to directly or indirectly harras, tamper with or otherwise seek to interfere with other users connectivity through technical or any other means – doing so may result in immediate termination of your contract without a refund”

In short guys, start disconnecting these damn anti-piracty parasites instead of us, your steady revenuestream of paying customers. I know the anti-piracy guys will maybe give you a bit of kickback through the IP-addresses they seek to uncover, for which they pay you money, but that’s going to be short lived revenue anyway.

Grow a pair and not only kill their internet connections, but their phonelines and faxes to and we will have these little creeps out in the street throwing rocks again.

WIPE IFPI and RIAA and all their little minions off the net!

Thank you,
Anonymous

The harder they get on suing and censoring the internet. The more i will release, boycott them, seed, educate others, build darknets and encrypt. Protests will turn in to war.

All your base are belong to us.
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Dr Undies

The powers that be will bite themselves in their collective asses. Look at the huge backlash against Metallica when they closed down Napster. These money =crazed assholes need to realise that they can only push the masses so far before the masses push back with more clout. I stopped buying music years ago ..since I was forced to re-buy my music collection every time the technology changed.
musicman

Stunning! A page full of rants and not one suggestion of an alternate solution that might lead to an equitable arrangement for the people that create the work that all enjoy. Using the big, bad music industry as justification for one’s acts is but a smokescreen. Less than 1% of artists receive over 90% of the monetary benefit from sales of music. Additionally, taking any creative work that is not legitimately offered up for free is an infringement of a duly recognized Human Right.

Dr. Undies (#59) suggests that he or she should not have to re-buy music. You don’t. You can even convert vinyl to mp3 on your own if you are willing to take the time. Will someone please offer a viable option. Artists recognize the realities they are faced with but “I will never pay for your work you greedy pig” is simply not a dignified position to take.
Anon omous

To #60: Really? That’s all you have? I am the rare person that has been a professional programmer from the early 80′s, and still employed today. I also happen to be an artist that has had a decent amount of success. Your argument is weak, and that is putting it nicely.

I have over 10k vinyl albums, 2500 cassette tapes, and yes I hate to admit, 426 8 track tapes. I also re-purchased, when available, over 90% of my library on CD.

In 1985 when CD’s started coming out there were NO turntables that allowed for any conversion of the yet to be released for public consumption MP3. The industry also picked and chose what was to be converted digitally. If you were an avid scavenger of the “bins,” you may have gotten lucky to find a digital release of your favorite artist only to find it discontinued months or, even weeks later leading to a friend to ask for a copy.

In short, I have spent more money repurchasing music than most. In this day and time I am simply cashing in my “frequent flier miles.” A service provider provides a service, nothing more, nothing less. What their customers do with that service that they pay for is out of the control of the ISP. Much like FED-Ex. Again, FED-EX is a service company, I hear tale that drug dealers have, and still use FED-EX to transport illicit items. By your logic since FED-EX provides a service that others use for purposes not intended by the “service provider,” everyone in the community of origin should be blocked from using the service. HMMMMMM…Try again #60.

As far as your solution. It is not the job of the consumer to give the vendor a solution. I was on many panels from the early 90′s to 2004 (I quit a lost cause) warning the music industry to adopt, and regulate the mp3 (BTW, Sony released the MP3 technology to the public). One leading record executive actually said that the Internet was a “FAD” that would soon be replaced by another “FAD.” Can you say, “OOOPS.”

Oh my, is it me, or who allowed companies to put out blank media? Oh wait, that’s right, the industry did! Need I go further with this argument.

#60, You remind me of that executive. This war was over when the industry killed the original Napster. Once the old music Nazi’s are gone, the Anons will take care of the artist with a more efficient way to distribute and promote the artists work. Music will be better off for living through these totalitarian days.

Oh yeah #60 F#$K YOU!
momoola

@60 (musicman)

I can see that you didn’t put much thought into this issue yourself. One doesn’t need to know an alternative business model to know that the current one is absurd.

Also, how are pirates hurting anyone? They merely copy data and deprive no one of anything.

You could (not really) argue that pirates ‘steal’ potential profit, but that’s simply illogical. For one thing, basic logic would tell you that for you to be able to steal something, it must first exist. Potential profit does not exist.

Second of all, if ‘stealing’ potential profit was possible, everyone would be ‘guilty’ of doing so. Think about it. You ‘steal’ profit that others could have had merely by not giving them your money, even if you’re not a pirate! If you had given them your money, they would have been better off, and therefore (like a pirate) they have ‘stolen’ profit that someone else could, potentially, have had.

Pirates don’t use up any of the artists time as they use their own time and resources to copy the data.

If you want to fix something, fix our illogical capitalistic society that demands that goods that are in an infinite supply be paid for (even though there’s no reason to pay for a good that will never run out), and those that do not will be labeled as ‘thieves’ (even though pirates take nothing). Until that is fixed, these supposed artists will continue to ‘suffer’, not because of pirates, but because of our capitalistic society which breeds corruption, greed, and an illogical set of rules.
sgr

.
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Anti-Piracy Group Seeks ISP Level Block of Movie Streaming Portal

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