Danish Copyright Censorship Proposal Revealed
Written by Ben Jones on May 17, 2008In February a Danish court forced ISP Tele2 to block its subscribers from accessing The Pirate Bay, following a similar order late last year to block allofmp3.com. A new proposal before the Danish government would mean that such actions would be quick and easy to do, without the need for a single court hearing.
Back in February we reported on the IFPI forcing, via the Danish courts, an ISP to block its subscribers from accessing The Pirate Bay. This case was the third occasion where an industry lobby group had flexed its muscles to block a website, a similar measure was used to block allofmp3.com and mp3sparks.com. However, the legality of these actions under European law, specifically the Infosoc directive, is dubious at best.
Nevertheless, two of the largest opposition parties in Danish parliament think it is a good idea – despite the ineffectiveness of the block – to streamline the process, making it quicker and easier to do. A proposal (Danish) before the government seems to create a tribunal to handle these cases.
Whereas in the past cases have involved a rights holder suing an ISP and forcing a block through the courts, this proposal creates a tribunal to do it instead. This tribunal will apparently consist of members appointed by government ministers, who will then rule on blocks with no judicial oversight. Any sites blocked would have to go through the courts to appeal and the site would remain blocked unless and until successful.
If that was not bad enough, there is also talk of a secretariat that would handle ’simple’ cases, so the appointed tribunal would not even have to hear the majority of cases. Cases would be put to the tribunal by copyright holders that feel they have had their rights infringed by the target site. As with the court cases, though, it’s extremely unlikely that the accused site will be invited or even made aware of any such proceedings, and allowed to state their case.
“This is a wet dream for organizations like IFPI,” is the view of Ole Husgaard, chairman of the Danish Pirate Party. “This isn’t even a law proposal, so there is not all the work usually done in our parliament when passing laws; this can be passed in a month or two. If it is, I would guess that we will have at least 2000 sites on the blocking list within 12 months - without a single court case having been decided, if any get started at all.”
He’s not alone in his pessimism. “It’s blatant censorship of course.” is the opinion of The Pirate Bay’s brokep. “It’s not in the interest of the citizens, so I hope the government understands that if they go against the people like that, they should be replaced. It is also not a huge step before they start censoring other stuff - let’s say political parties that have thoughts about changing the current government.”
As analysis of the Pirate Bay block has found it contrary to EU laws, it’s curious as to the motivation behind this proposal. The only rational one would be bribery – either legal or not – and so the question we are forced to ask is, are Danish politicians cheaper to buy than those in New York?
Previously: Michael Jackson to Take on The Pirate Bay
Next: The Pirate Bay Enters List of 100 Most Popular Webites
42 Responses
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Lets get real. No matter how much they want to block a site 3 sites will spawn with info on how to get around the block…
And theres always Mininova… well… as for the time being there is…
@ 26
It’s not about finding alternatives, it’s about telling those mofos lobbyists to keep their filthy hands off our freedom dammit!
This seems direct censorship w/out the right to be heard by a constitutionally appointed judiciary is it not ?
Offcourse everyone has a right to be heard so blocking a site before the case comes to the court seems fishy…..
Isnt the legislature overstepping its boundaries by doing all this which is going to be against the natural rights of a person ? (expression / free speech etc.)
Someone enlighten me…
I think these are weak half measures.
Anyway, I love to rant here how these fags are so gay and so on..
Hah, one more proof on that SF is a party consisting of nothing but pure and naive idiots.
SF would never get my vote - and with that new proposal, they can be sure that they’ll never ever change my mind.
I thought S was clearer in mind towards censorship and such, but I guess not.
It’s a good thing that S and SF aren’t the majority in the parliament.
I don’t know where Venstre and Dansk Folkeparti are regarding piracy and censorship, but I guess they’ve more ease in mind than the opposition.
Morten Skyt wrote:
Yea, it’s a sad day…
In case anyone cares, I did a translation with (hopefully) necessary comments for it to be understandable to non-danes:
Proposal B 137 (as proposed): Proposal for parliament decision on the creation of a compliant tribunal for copyright on the internet.
Proposed the 8th of May 2008 by Hanne Agersnap (SF), Ole Hækkerup (S), Pernille Frahm (SF) og Ole Sohn (SF).
[ed: this is the left wing of the parliament: SF = Socialistic People Party ("Socialistisk Folkeparty"), S = Social Democracy ("Socialdemokraterne")]
Proposal for parliament decision
about the creation of a complaints tribunal for copyright on the internet
The parliament impose the government within the end of 2008, to create a compliant tribunal, who can judge possible violations of copyright on the internet, and eventually impose the telecommunications industry to block links to internet pages, that makes it possible to violate copyright.
The tribunal will continuously put significant rulings on a website and yearly submit a report, which goes through finished cases, to shed light on the state of the law on an array of significant copyright subareas.
The proposers would like to se, that the tribunals secretariat gets the option to quickly make guiding answers on cases, which is estimated to be handled safely by the secretariat, as such an administrative guide is deemed to ease the pressure on actual tribunal decisions, so the number and answer times are fair.
Notes for the suggestion:
There is currently unclear matters of law in this area. The proposers wishes, that a tribunal alike the Compliant tribunal for domain names. In such a tribunal, both the offended and the alleged offender shall be heard, and the issue must be decided by a judge.
In cases of violation of copyright on the internet, the offended has in many cases given up about going directly to the offender. They’ll instead contact the telecommunication companies and ask them to close the connection to the allegedly illegal internet sites. That means, that the enquiry does not come from an authority, but from the right holders - and that the other part is not heard. If the telecommunication companies does not do as follows, they’ll get sued in County Court. Here they’ll most often get ordered to block access to the internet pages, where the violations occur.
Alternatively it is possible for the telecommunication companies to choose to block for every single internet page, that the right owner wishes blocked. But it is not an advantage regarding the state of the justice security, as the possible offenders has neither been reviewed by an authority or a judge, and the opponents points of view has not been heard.
In other cases of atrocities on the internet, the telecommunication industry works with public authority regarding blocking illegalities. This regards child pornography, racially offensive remarks, and threats. Here the telecommunication companies get a list from the police with IP-addresses to block. It is respected by all companies, who block these addresses. It is the telecommunication companies, who judge the legality, but the police or PET wishes blocked [ed: The Danish Security and Intelligence Service ("Politiets Efterretningstjeneste")]. But also here could a tribunal eventually afterwards take out cases for review.
The proposers deem, that the proposal is expense neutral, in that there’ll be savings for the County Court, as some County Court-cases are moved to the proposed tribunal and it’s secretariat. If the proposed tribunals secretariat is joined physically and partially administratively with one or more of the already existing tribunal secretariats, the large-scale benefits will furthermore assure, that it is expense neutral.
Written statement
Hanne Agersnap (SF):
As spokesperson for the proposers I hereby propose:
Proposal B 137: Proposal for parliament decision on the creation of a compliant tribunal for copyright on the internet.
I refer by the way to the remarks, which accompany the proposal, and recommends it to the Partliament’s willful treatment.
————————————
Deep. Very deep. Thanks for the input.
The biggest argument against TPD is the child porn, if anything they support it being there.
Also us torrenters have come to rely too much on its tracker, and is too much of a central point of failure.
http://www.painfullback.com/
This proposal is clearly written by
an IT illiterate.
It specifically says “to force the
telco. industry to block LINKS to any
INTERNET SITE” making copyright infringement possible !!!
So it HAS to be a link to be blocked,
and it only has to give the possibility of infringement to be a
candidate for the block list.
If this proposal passes .. well ..
speechless here
This proposal is clearly written by
an IT illiterate.
It specifically says “to force the
telco. industry to block LINKS to any
INTERNET SITE” making copyright infringement possible !!!
So it HAS to be a link to be blocked,
and it only has to give the possibility of infringement to be a
candidate for the block list.
If this proposal passes .. well ..
speechless here
“..eventually impose the telecommunications industry to block links to internet pages, that makes it possible to violate copyright”
This is certainly random censorship, as most Internet sites link to copyrighted material in some way, much of it being what its authors are offering, or linked pages contain links to other pages and so on. Every site thus would be required to be blocked. Stupidity at its finest.
The status quo at present would be that a certain amount of films are still sold in Sweden. These actions are intended not only to penalize “offenders” but also to force the public to buy all the products. If they collectively refused to do so, it would make the censorship worthless. Maybe that would create a big market for cheap pirated copies.
As long as artists still support the Big 4 music producers, the public will continue having trouble from them. Again, if artists would go independent online, or use other labels, most of these problems would disappear in time. Also if people stopped buying their product, artists would be forced to abandon them for other distribution methods or labels. Artists who contract with RIAA cronies do so either with blatant disregard for their fans welfare, or they are in agreement with the way they treat them and feel they do some good. These artists don’t deserve respect, and need to be taught a lesson through public sanctions.
What if a site talks about another site which offers copyrighted material but doesn’t provide links? Or what if a site discusses music or lists albums or songs? These would all require blocking also since it could give people ideas on what to search for. All file storage sites would need blocking. All FTP sites. Search engines themselves contain links to copyrighted material. Google would be blocked.
I don’t know what I need to avoid sharing because the cartels never publish a list such as they sent to Comcast. So who knows, and how can they blame anyone for sharing them?
Talk about fuxxing pointless! The first person to set up another proxy server outside Denmark, the whole thing is blown away in an instant.
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.”
QFT
damn this fucking sucks.. I am from Denmark and I fucking hate these rules we have man.. I wanna move to Sweden or something.. thats better
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