20. International
text Malini Witlox illustration Pascal Tieman
Hunting the pirate Worldwide internet censorship. It sounds frightening, but if we may believe the critics, we’re getting pretty close. New laws regarding internet freedom are currently being prepared in the Netherlands and abroad, resulting in fierce court battles.
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et’s be fair. It is a little strange. You would never pocket a DVD or CD in a music store, but you’ll download the latest Coldplay album online without any qualms. All right, according to some this is not really the same as stealing, you are after all just making a copy. However, it is clear that many artists aren’t that happy about the situation and are missing out on revenue. To how much this exactly amounts to, divides opinion. Governments and judiciaries aim to counteract piracy by implementing new laws and regulations. Infamous names of such sections of Bypassing blockades law are SOPA and PIPA. In mid-January, A website is often blocked via the Domain American websites such as Wikipedia Name System (DNS). Your service provider and Firefox went black in protest against links a DNS to an IP address, determining these anti-piracy laws. SOPA (Stop Online whether or not you’ll be given access to a Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) should certain website. These internet blockades both ensure that access to (foreign) sites are relatively easily bypassed. But how? is prevented when they posted stolen or illegal content. Sites enabling piracy are - Via The Onion Router (TOR): a worldwide liable to be blocked as well. This could lead computer network which gives you access to entire websites being blocked because to the internet by via some intermediary someone, somewhere, has placed a link steps. You can download the TOR browser to an untrustworthy site. This approach at The TOR Project website which enables has angered some internet companies. you to surf the internet anonymously. After all this commotion, the SOPA bill was - Via a proxy server. This also functions withdrawn until more support was found. with an intermediary. By way of your The vote on PIPA has also been postponed own internet connection, you’ll access a by the American Senate until more is clear proxy server, which you can use to access about its consequences. the web. Instead of your own IP address, the proxy site’s one will be transmitted. - Via a VPN (virtual private network) connection: VPN connections are specially encrypted connections using a regular internet connection. They are often used for company networks. Using it will enable you to access blocked sites. Hotspot Shield, for example, offers a good VPN solution. - By changing your DNS servers. Various public DNS providers are available, among which are Google Public DNS and OpenDNS. - Mirror sites can sometimes also be used to bypass an internet blockade. This usually is a copy of a controversial site, but has been created by another party. For example, there are some mirror sites of the blocked Pirate Bay website available.
Univers 1 maart 2012
There be pirates ‘ere The Netherlands is facing similar issues. For some students, internet censorship has become quite palpable: the university in Groningen has said to block BitTorrent traffic in its student apartments from March onwards, because of complaints from American film studios and BREIN, a Dutch foundation devoted to counteract violations of intellectual property rights. Furthermore, a judge ordered two Dutch access providers to block BitTorrent website The Pirate Bay in January. BREIN had called attention to this issue. An appeal is in the works, but the providers are required to block the website in the meantime. BREIN has since then sued other Dutch providers as well – the jury’s still out on these cases. It may seem odd that a provider is held responsible for content posted on a website.
It is after all, only concerned with the technical aspect of internet access. “If someone posts something illegally on the internet, they are the perpetrator of an unlawful act. Not the provider”, says Maurice Schellekens, university lecturer and affiliated as a researcher to the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society. “That, however, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t concern the provider at all. Providers are not required to patrol the web to monitor everything their customers post on their server. Nevertheless, when a provider has received a complaint, it must act upon it. This has also been established in a European guideline regarding electronic trade. In practice, many providers have a notice and takedown policy.” Schellekens has previously published his PhD on the responsibility of the providers. “The Pirate Bay is known to move its content to a foreign server every time it is sentenced – so it can’t be called to account by Dutch legislation. So the debate has shifted to the question if so-called ‘access providers’, with which consumers access the internet, should block access to The Pirate Bay as well. That’s new – and it is yet to be decided if it’s desirable. It means that providers will continuously need to be updated on which servers are moving. And it’s possible that they will block websites which are in fact legal.”
Three strikes and you’re out It doesn’t stop with The Pirate Bay. The Dutch Justice State Secretary, Fred Teeven, is also working on a bill aiming to combat internet piracy. Teeven wants to replace the current private copying levy, which charges extra costs for empty CDs and DVDs to compensate artists, with a ban on downloading. The proposal states that providers should be tough on people who download excessively. Apart from that, it proposes foreign websites offering illegal content to be blocked as well. Bits of Freedom is an organization dedicated to internet freedom in The Netherlands. Daphne van der Kroft, communication strategist at the organization, worries about Teeven’s bill – in particular about the monitoring role providers would assume. “This has serious consequences to internet freedom. We also feel that artists should be paid for the work they do. However, politicians and the entertainment industry only focus on enforcement of policy and not on possible alternatives. We have no issue with the goal itself, but we do question whether the end justifies the means.” Teeven’s bill states, according to insiders, that among others, excessive downloaders may be denied access to the internet after three violations. This law is already in effect in France and is also considered in Germany and the United Kingdom. Schellekens: “Such a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy does raise a few questions. Do you block all of the internet or just certain websites? For life or for several months?”