Last week, a Turkish court ordered an access ban on a single post in the vast sea of more than 60 million individual blogs on WordPress. But for many users, that meant their Internet service providers blocked WordPress entirely.
A lawyer and Turkish Pirate Party member tracked down the root of the sudden ban on all of WordPress: a court order seeking to block a single blog post written by a professor accusing another professor of plagiarism. This post apparently led to several defamation lawsuits and the lawsuits led to a court order basically saying that if blocking the single post proved too difficult, fuck it, block the entire domain.
It is the second sentence in the order, however, that caused the complete ban of WordPress in the country. “If the access to the single page cannot be possible due to technical reasons,” it reads, “block access to wordpress.com.”
Tag: Censorship
RIAA Bites Grooveshark With Record Google Takedowns
It would be fair to say that the relationship between the world’s major recording labels and streaming music service Grooveshark is a rocky one at best.
Founded in 2006 as a site where users could upload their own music and listen to streams for free, friction with record companies built alongside Grooveshark’s growth. EMI first filed a copyright infringement suit against the company in 2009 but it was withdrawn later that year after the pair reached a licensing agreement.
Since then there have been major and ongoing disputes with the labels of the RIAA who accuse Grooveshark of massive copyright infringement. Those behind the service insist that Grooveshark is simply a YouTube-like site which is entitled to enjoy the safe harbor protections of the DMCA.
Part of Grooveshark’s DMCA responsibilities is to remove infringing content once a copyright holder asks for it to be taken down. Grooveshark doesn’t publish any kind of transparency report but there is nothing to suggest that in 2015 it doesn’t take that responsibility extremely seriously.
However, Google’s transparency report reveals that the world’s major recording labels are currently hitting Grooveshark particularly hard. In fact, between the RIAA, IFPI and several affiliated anti-piracy groups, Google handled 346,619 complaints during the past month alone, with up to 10,000 URLs reported in a single notice.
What’s Scarier: Terrorism, or Governments Blocking Websites in its Name?
The French Interior Ministry on Monday ordered that five websites be blocked on the grounds that they promote or advocate terrorism. “I do not want to see sites that could lead people to take up arms on the Internet,” proclaimed Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.
When the block functions properly, visitors to those banned sites, rather than accessing the content of the sites they chose to visit, will be automatically redirected to the Interior Ministry website. There, they will be greeted by a graphic of a large red hand, and text informing them that they were attempting to access a site that causes or promotes terrorism: “you are being redirected to this official website since your computer was about to connect with a page that provokes terrorist acts or condones terrorism publicly.”
No judge reviews the Interior Ministry’s decisions. The minister first requests that the website owner voluntarily remove the content he deems transgressive; upon disobedience, the minister unilaterally issues the order to Internet service providers for the sites to be blocked. This censorship power is vested pursuant to a law recently enacted in France empowering the interior minister to block websites.Forcibly taking down websites deemed to be supportive of terrorism, or criminalizing speech deemed to “advocate” terrorism, is a major trend in both Europe and the West generally. Last month in Brussels, the European Union’s counter-terrorism coordinator issued a memo proclaiming that “Europe is facing an unprecedented, diverse and serious terrorist threat,” and argued that increased state control over the Internet is crucial to combating it.
Michigan Attorney General Slaps Reporter With Bogus Subpoenas For Doing Her Job
Why is it always the state Attorneys General? Time and time again we see examples of state AGs who seem to think they’re above the law and can abuse their position to attack those they dislike. The latest? Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette. Apparently, he was none too happy that Huffington Post reporter Dana Liebelson was investigating juvenile prison conditions in the state, and had a representative from his office follow her for two hours across the state to slap her with two separate, but equally questionable, subpoenas, demanding all of her notes.
As Liebelson notes on her Twitter feed, she had had permission to visit the prisons, and agreed not to bring in a recording device. She noted that she followed all the rules that she was given for reporting from the prison — and yet, she immediately gets slapped with a subpoena demanding her notes.
And she wasn’t the only one. Another report notes that Schuette also sent a subpoena to Michigan Radio, demanding its recording of a prisoner/attorney interview.
Florida Legislators Introduce Bill That Would Strip Certain Site Owners Of Their Anonymity
This week, the Florida state legislature is considering a bill that would make it illegal to run any website or service anonymously, if the site fits a vague category of “disseminat[ing]” “commercial” recordings or videos—even the site owner’s own work. Outlawing anonymous speech raises a serious First Amendment problem, and laws like this one have been abused by police and the entertainment industry.
The bill (Senate and House versions) seems to be catering directly to the entertainment industry and could give local law enforcement City of London Police-esque powers to act as de facto copyright cops. And its potential stripping of anonymity not only requires disclosure to law enforcement, but everyone else on the web.
A person who owns or operates a website or online service dealing in substantial part in the electronic dissemination of commercial recordings or audiovisual works, directly or indirectly, to consumers in this state shall clearly and conspicuously disclose his or her true and correct name, physical address, and telephone number or e-mail address on his or her website or online service in a location readily accessible to a consumer using or visiting the website or online service.
The Pirate Bay Will be Blocked in Portugal
As the archrival of many copyright groups, The Pirate Bay has become one of the most censored websites on the Internet in recent years.
Courts all around the world have ordered Internet providers to block subscriber access to the torrent site and the list continues to expand.
Last month French ISPs started blocking The Pirate Bay and last week the Intellectual Property Court in Portugal ordered a similar measure against local Internet providers.
The case was brought by the Association for Copyright Management, Producers and Publishers (GEDIPE), who argued that their members are financially hurt by TPB’s services.
In its verdict the court ruled that Vodafone, MEO and NOS have to prevent users from visiting the torrent site within 30 days. If they fail to do so the ISPs face a fine of 2,500 euros per day.
The injunction marks the first time that Internet providers in Portugal are required to block a website on copyright grounds. Previously there were cases against unknown website owners, but not ISPs.
“In the case of Pirate Bay, the judge decided to blame the Internet provider, which now face a financial penalty,” GEDIPE boss Paulo Santos comments.
Pirate Bay is currently among the 100 most visited sites in Portugal. Whether the blockade will stop people from pirating has yet to be seen. Several other TPB proxies remain available, and so are dozens of other torrent sites.
GEDIPE is urging the Internet providers to discuss voluntary actions to target other pirate sites. If they refuse to do so, the group will go back to court to demand more injunctions.
“Internet providers are not our enemies. If they combat pirate sites they will also be defending their own content distribution businesses. It is time to sit down and negotiate blocking measures that don’t require the courts to get involved,” Santos says.
“If Internet providers don’t want to go down down this road we have to move forward with injunctions targeting dozens of sites that promote sharing of pirated content,” he adds.
The ISPs have previously spoken out against blocking measures, arguing that they will block legitimate content as well. They still have the option to appeal the injunction but thus far it’s unclear if they will.
Dr. Mario J.A. Saad Tries, And Fails, To Censor American Diabetes Association
Dr. Saad is mad.
Dr. Saad is mad because of something bad — specifically, the American Diabetes Association, through its journal Diabetes, is publishing expressions of concern about some of his scholarly articles, and may formally withdraw them.
Expressions of concern — like formal withdrawal of past articles — are part of the peer review process. It’s how scientific journals police themselves and call attention to questions raised about research they’ve published. Naturally they are a source of annoyance to the authors questioned, as I’ve written about in the cases of several legal threats against the blog Retraction Watch.
So when the ADA began questioning Dr. Saad’s work, he and his lawyers at Deutsch Williams did not rely on the peer review process, or on advocacy or persuasion. Don’t be ridiculous! This is America. So they sued.
FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai Is Leading An Incoherent, Facts-Optional Last Minute War On Net Neutrality…For The American People
Over the last few months we’ve discussed how FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai has been waging a one man war on net neutrality and Title II using what can only be described as an increasingly aggressive barrage of total nonsense. Back in January Pai tried to claim that Netflix was a horrible neutrality hypocrite because the company uses relatively ordinary content delivery networks. Earlier this month Pai one-upped himself by trying to claim that meaningful neutrality consumer protections would encourage countries like Iran and North Korea to censor the Internet.
Now on the surface, it appears that Pai just doesn’t understand technology very well. Of course, once you understand that he was once a regulatory lawyer for Verizon, you realize he’s simply dressing broadband duopoly profit protection up as some kind of deeper, meaningful ethos. As such, lamenting that Title II is “Obamacare for the Internet,” is just political theater designed to rile up the base to the benefit of the broadband industry.
With net neutrality set for a vote this week, Pai has accelerated his master plan to make the largest number of inaccurate net neutrality statements in the shortest amount of time possible. For example, Pai co-wrote an editorial in the Chicago Tribune last week that tries to use Obamacare fears to insist Americans will lose the right to choose their own wireless plans if Title II based rules come to pass:
“If you like your wireless plan, you should be able to keep it. But new federal regulations may take away your freedom to choose the best broadband plan for you. It’s all part of the federal government’s 332-page plan to regulate the Internet like a public utility…take T-Mobile’s Music Freedom program, which the Internet conduct rule puts on the chopping block. The “Un-carrier” allows consumers to stream as much online music as they want without charging it against their monthly data allowance.”
Popcorn Time “Fan Pages” Nuked By Anti-Piracy Outfit
Released in the first quarter of 2014, any minute now Popcorn Time will celebrate its one year anniversary.
It’s been a roller-coaster ride for the various forks of the project after generating hundreds of headlines between them. Needless to say, many have focused on how the project provides sleek access to unauthorized content.
Predictably that ease of use has proven most popular in the United States but interestingly Popcorn Time also proved itself a disproportionate hit in the Netherlands. Last September one fork reported 1.3 million installs in a population of just 17 million.
No surprise then that Popcorn Time has appeared on the radar of Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN. The Hollywood-affiliated group has been relatively quiet in recent months but is now reporting action aimed at stemming the flow of users to the popular torrent streaming application.
Denouncing Popcorn Time as an “illegal service”, BREIN reports that it has recently shut down “six Dutch Popcorn Time sites” and reached a settlement with their operators.
BREIN usually keeps the names of shuttered sites a closely guarded secret, but on this occasion has chosen to name four out of the six.
PopcornTime.nl, Popcorn-Time.eu, Popcorn-Time.info and PopcornTimeFilms.nl are now non-operational and currently display the warning message below as per their agreement with BREIN.
This site has been removed by the BREIN foundation for propagating Popcorn Time Software.
Popcorn Time encourages illegal use and uses an illegal online supply of films and television series.
WARNING: Popcorn Time software uses peer-to-peer (P2P) technology allowing users to both up – and download. Streaming, uploading and downloading of illegal content is prohibited by law and will therefore result in liability for the damages caused.
NOTE: Uploading is illegal and causes greater damage than a single download.
SUPPORT CREATIVITY: Go to Thecontentmap.nl and see where you can legally download and stream.
Tumblr Censors “Torrent” Related Tags and Searches
It appears that piracy is becoming a growing concern for micro-blogging platform Tumblr.
Earlier this week users panicked following an increase in takedown notices, which resulted in the termination of several blogs.
While this uproar was rather public, there are also better concealed changes that seem to target pirated content. Tumblr’s decision to hide posts mentioning the word “torrent” for example.
Those who search the site for “torrent” related queries will notice that there are no results displayed, even though there are plenty of posts mentioning the word. The same is true for posts tagged with “torrent.”
Tumblr is hiding the results in question from both public and logged in users but the latter can make the posts show up if they switch off the “safe mode” lock on the right hand side of the screen.
Tumblr’s “safe mode” was turned on by default over a year ago to hide offensive “adult oriented” content from the public view. The same filter also blocks words such as “penis” for the same reason.