good luck with that. It'll be a bit like whack a mole, except the isps only have a cripple hand and their hammer is broken.
BT gets 14 days to block Newzbin2
Websites and IP addresses will become unreachable for the first time in the UK for copyright reasons. The High Court has ordered BT to block subscribers access to Newzbin 2, as well as any other sites or end points it uses. BT has 14 days to implement the measure, and must pay for it, too, a cost estimated at £5,000 initially …
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Thursday 27th October 2011 00:35 GMT Greg J Preece
Nnnnnnnope
The thin end of the wedge was when they used these powers to block child porn. Now they're blocking copyright material on the basis that "well, you already have the capability to block, right?" It's good old function creep. It'll go something like this:
Block child porn (Think of the kiddies....not that way!)
Block anything considered extreme by middle class white people (The terrorists want to kill you.)
Block copyright infringing sites (You're a filthy pirate.)
Block any porn considered a bit much by middle class white people (It's filth. Think of the kiddies!)
Block anything you like so long as you can get the Daily Fail to support the ban. Site mentioning drug use? Ban it. Site potentially used for prositution? Ban it. Site reflecting real life? Ban it!
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Wednesday 26th October 2011 13:33 GMT Velv
Legal Precedent
From the BBC coverage:
""The judge ruled that the ISP is closely related to the wrongdoing, it happened on its pipes and therefore it should pay," said Simon Baggs, a partner at Wiggin LLP law firm."
Right, off to sue Mercedes and Edinburgh Council for my recent speeding ticket. It was their roads and car that made the speeding possible so they must be "closely related to the wrongdoing".
While Newzbin is encouraging illegal actions, it is only an index, a facilitator. Will Twitter and Facebook be blocked next since they facilitate riots? Or are they the hero as they facilitate civil action against tyrannical governnments? One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter. The wedge just got a little thinner.
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Wednesday 26th October 2011 13:33 GMT TonyHoyle
WTF?
"In case you’re wondering, “site” means destination. Soon after the earlier judgement, users could access Newzbin2 unlicensed material thanks to a browser plug-in. The judge said that was still accessing Newzbin2."
By that reasoning BT woud have to block all proxies, all kinds of VPN, and anything they couldn't immediately identify as 'safe' before they could comply.
And even then someone would find a way though. Like using a different ISP...
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Wednesday 26th October 2011 16:49 GMT ElReg!comments!Pierre
"BT woud have to block all proxies"
Not so. If you read the ruling, they have to block every access to newzbin[2] _when notified by the studios_.
So now it's a matter of who's fastest: newzbin in changing URLs and IPs, or the studios in finding the new ones. My money's on the former, which makes it a dubious victory for the studios. Of course it won't block newzbin2, it will at most mildly inconvenience them, at a great cost for the studios. What it does, however, is set a precedent: you can now block network ressources at the ISP level for copyright reasons. That, I am sure, has Big Music all wet and sploochy.
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Wednesday 26th October 2011 19:24 GMT Ken Hagan
Re: Like using a different ISP...
I doubt that will work. An ISP who knows that his competitor has just lost in court on a point of law would surely be unwilling to do exactly the same thing. Legal precedent would presumably mean that *their* trial was an open and shut case.
Related to this, it would presumably be both polite and in their interests for BT to notify their rivals of any blocking orders they receive, just so that all UK ISPs are blocking the same stuff. :)
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Wednesday 26th October 2011 13:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
How will the block be reported to the user?
A 403 Forbidden message (or 410 Gone) saying the site has been deliberately blocked and the reason why along with links to the studio involved and court documents?
A 503 Service Unavailable ?
A 404 Not Found ?
A 418 I'm a Teapot?
Or just redirected to BT.com - with advertising on the redirect page to make some money back?
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Wednesday 26th October 2011 13:34 GMT Pete 2
Spycatcher
> Websites and IP addresses will become unreachable for the first time in the UK for copyright reasons.
There have been other sites blocked from the tender eyes of UK surfers for other reasons. ISTR the New York Times (or somesuch) was blocked so that we couldn't read all the secret information that the above book revealed - although it was perfectly alright for the rest of the world to know it. I also seem to recall that the workarounds to let people read the blocked content were published and widely circulated within hours of the measures coming into effect.
I am in little doubt that this judgment will be enforced with the same level of efficacy.
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Wednesday 26th October 2011 13:34 GMT Wonkydonkey
Interesting to watch
I wonder how long it will take Newsbin2 to become newsbin3? Will that be different enough to not be covered by the same court order? How about binnewz4?
If I understand correctly they also have a tor version of the site and an application available for download, are either of these being blocked? Can they? Are they covered by the same court order?
What about the firefox plugin? Fire something? Can't remember what it's called, but will that get round what BT do?
Not sure I rate BT's chances of this that highly...
I also wonder how fast the other ISP's will follow...
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Wednesday 26th October 2011 13:34 GMT Anonymous Coward
" users could access Newzbin2 unlicensed material thanks to a browser plug-in. The judge said that was still accessing Newzbin2."
So this is going to be a game of cat and mouse, except that the cat isn't actually bothered or trying very hard. Presumably Newzbin2 and friends are going to put in far more effort producing workarounds than BT are going to put in blocking them. Ergo, Newzbin2 already wins. Nice one judge...
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Wednesday 26th October 2011 14:00 GMT squilookle
Maybe if we were encouraging/forcing the ISPs to spend money on improving their infrastructure rather than on things like this, broadband in [large areas of] this country wouldn't be so crap.
I don't condone copyright infringement, but I feel the studios should be looking at the reasons for it and addressing them, rather than branding everyone a criminal.
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Wednesday 2nd November 2011 14:13 GMT K
Like ridiculously high movie and music costs? ... While it costs more to stream a movie than buy the physical DVD, then you know theres a problem.
The fact is they have lost control of the distribution, which has effectively broken their cartel, they now need to partake in "pricing competition", which should be seen as healthy!
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Wednesday 26th October 2011 14:40 GMT John A Blackley
Obtuse or just silly?
I wonder if the honourable Thingy, in giving his judgement, employed any actual knowledge (native or supplied) of how the internet works.
In his opinion the honourable Thingy might have been setting precedent so that censoring of the internet in the UK could continue to grow. In my opinion, all he's done is order a gate to be placed on a field. With no fence around it.
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Thursday 27th October 2011 12:41 GMT Wayland Sothcott 1
I think he is making a case for Tor.
A virtual network overlaid onto an existing network. People will make their sites more virtual. We already have P2P, why not use P2P to host websites?
The traffic could be masked to look like BT Vision and YouTube. You could rebuild the whole IP system on top of this virtual network. Virtual servers would be distributed.
Ah but then this is probably why the PC and Laptop are being replaced by iTabs and Androids.
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Wednesday 26th October 2011 16:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
All these will come out of your pockets.
I see BT's gonna reduce their service level even more and increase their broadband pricing to cover all these expenses.
This isn't just a problem between BT/or any ISP vs movie studios.
This is indirect cost to broadband consumers.
The court was stupid to think this is anything other than a complete waste of money and clearly not the way forward.
Penalizing internet access providers like this is like penalizing privately-held toll roads. Simply because that road is often used to illegally transport imitation designer goods
at the request of the fashion industry and asking the companies to check all traffic for contraband.
Clearly, if you try and put real-world examples into effect, the only real option is to have a great firewall around the entire country's communication system. Oh but then you'll be Chinese. Though one can argue there is little difference here now, it's just more distributed (as in individual ISP are responsible instead of a central authority).
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Thursday 27th October 2011 13:46 GMT Andrew Macrobie
To be fair, we'll be paying for the whole bloody thing - start to end, taxpayers paying for court time and due process, customers paying for the costs incurred by BT and their "legal support" and ultimately, we'll be paying the copyright holder whatever they ask (and the removal of secondary sources of supply will guarantee this is the case) for access to their materials.
We will also end up paying, one way or another, for the implementation and management of any filtering systems required by the courts to support their judgements.
Awesome. Out of curiosity, is there /anything/ we're not paying for out of all this ??
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Wednesday 26th October 2011 16:51 GMT ph0b0s
ISP's different to every other utility provider
So the courts have set the precedent, that ISP's are different to every other utility provider. In that they have to police that the service they provide is not used for something illegal. This is unlike electricity, water or phone providers who don't have to police what users do with the services they provide.
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Wednesday 2nd November 2011 14:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
It's not unlike electricity. People using more than the expected amount of electricity have been receiving visits from plod looking for hemp farms. And surely you can't say that phone providers haven't stumped up the odd Mb of information to the police.
In a way, the ISPs have made themselves vulnerable to this sort of thing...you either run a dumb pipe or you traffic shape. Once you've made the decision to interfere in the flow of data, all else is mission creep.
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Wednesday 26th October 2011 16:51 GMT Fuh Quit
Congratulations to raising awareness
I never knew about this site. So a heartfelt THANK YOU to those wanting to block it.
Am I alone? Doubt it! Oh and there are lots of tunnelling sites on the Internet, ctunnel, vtunnel....and that's beyond what seems to be happening elsewhere.
Fail and move to China?
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Thursday 27th October 2011 03:08 GMT Sonny Jim
Electricity companies and Cannabis factories
Electric companies will not report excessive usage to the police, it's just plain not in their interest. What's more likely to happen is that the police will approach the electric company rather than the other way round, but even then that's unlikely to happen as a large electric bill is circumstantial evidence at best.
You are much more likely to get caught by the smell, neighbours reporting suspicious activity and good ol' thermal imaging cameras on helicopters.
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Thursday 27th October 2011 12:41 GMT Wayland Sothcott 1
They don't do all these things at once. This is coming. They are supplying little wireless meters which tell the users how much they are using. They are supplying smartmeters than can tell what devices are using the electricity. They are publishing your bill online. Once it's as easy as using google earth to spot swimming pools then expect them to use electricity usage to find cannabis growers.
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Thursday 27th October 2011 10:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
Business exempt?
According to the documentation on BT's site for leased business lines, Clearfeed is an "optional extra" that can be opted out of.
http://business.bt.com/asset-library/btnet-premium/BTnet-Features_and_TechSpec.pdf
So the public gets screwed and businesses are exempt... sounds about right.
Perhaps, like a reverse of businesses in the states having themselves declared to have the same rights as a member of the public, we the public would garner more protection and rights if each of us declared ourselves to be businesses?
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Friday 4th November 2011 10:16 GMT LittleTyke
Would the people with the big stick frown on an NZB parser?
You see, I've been following this saga with Newzbin because some while ago I developed a Visual Basic 6 application for parsing the contents of an NZB file and after several updates it works pretty well. Now if I were to provide this as freeware, would I get a bunch of fives through my letter box, so to speak? Just wondering like...
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Wednesday 9th November 2011 16:12 GMT ShaggyDogg
Think outside the box
These actions stink of a desperate attempt by an industry fast running out of ideas of how to conduct its business in a technically evolving world.
Wouldn't it be a good idea for the 'media industry' to wake up to the 21st century get on-board and embrace ‘free’ file-sharing sites as a very cost effective means for them to distribute their own content? By simply throwing their weight around playing ‘big brother’ to restrict ISP with court orders only makes users more determined to undermine them (note the relatively easy workarounds commented in the article).
By taking control back, they can drive out the "piracy" element of file-sharing, and put them back in driving seat of distributing quality and quantity media.
With a little creative thinking there must be plenty of revenue streams open for possible financial exploitation. How about advertising through distributed content during download, adding additional files in the torrent, or on the distributor websites themselves. Cinemas, DVDs content, search & social network websites have been exploiting this for years. Like most, I hate advertising, but if it’s a means for this industry to quit with their draconian, narrow-minded approach, then why not?
Another revenue stream could be having other ‘media’ type websites paying to advertise ‘teaser’ trailers sending traffic to the download site?
Or, build a closer relationship with ‘free’ distribution of artists’ material with merchandising sold. There surely must be a market link between distribution and exposure with merchandise sales as a result?
Or for studios to pay studios for quantity of downloads on whichever sites become most popular over time?
These are just a couple of ideas off the top of my head, and I’ll leave the viability open to comment. My point is there's surely plenty of alternative revenue streams to selling DVDs.
All that's needed is a little thinking outside-the-box.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
