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Piracy The Internet

Pirate Site Blocking Is Making Its Way Into Free Trade Agreements (torrentfreak.com) 39

The new free trade agreement between Australia and the UK includes a site blocking paragraph. The text requires the countries to provide injunctive relief to require ISPs to prevent subscribers from accessing pirate sites. While this doesn't change much for the two countries, rightsholders are already eying similar requirements for trade deals with other nations. TorrentFreak reports: The inclusion of a blocking paragraph in the copyright chapter of the trade deal was high on the agenda of various copyright holder groups. Following a series of hearings and consultations, both countries settled on the following text:

1. Each Party shall provide that its civil judicial authorities have the authority to grant an injunction against an ISP within its territory, ordering the ISP to take action to block access to a specific online location, in cases where:
(a) that online location is located outside the territory of that Party; and
(b) the services of the ISP are used by a third party to infringe copyright or related rights in the territory of that Party.

2. For greater certainty, nothing in this Article precludes a Party from providing that its judicial authorities may grant an injunction to take action to block access to online locations used to infringe intellectual property rights in circumstances other than those specified in paragraph 1.


This hasn't gone unnoticed by the Alliance for Intellectual Property, which represents rightsholder organizations such as the MPA, BPI, and the Premier League. The group repeatedly urged the UK Government to include site-blocking powers in the agreement. In a recent submission to the UK Government, the Alliance once again stresses the importance of site blocking, while also hinting at broadening the current anti-piracy toolbox. "It has become a hugely valuable tool in the armory of rights holders looking to protect their IP. It is vital that the UK Government ensures the preservation of the no-fault injunctive relief regime," the Alliance writes. "We would also encourage the opening of dialogue, wherever possible, to share experience around UK practices and to encourage faster, more efficient website blocking procedures, whether through civil, criminal, administrative or voluntary means."

The site-blocking language is already included in the latest trade deal draft but the Alliance is also looking ahead at future agreements with other countries. In this context, the blocking paragraph will send a clear message. "We would therefore urge the UK Government to include reference to the site blocking legislation in the FTA with Australia as it will send an important message to future countries that we might chose [sic] to negotiate trade agreements with." The Alliance for Intellectual Property doesn't mention any other countries by name. However, it specifically references a report from the U.S. Copyright Office where site blocking was mentioned as a potential future anti-piracy option. In the same report, the Copyright Office also stressed that further research would be required on the effect and impact of a U.S. site-blocking scheme, but the idea wasn't dismissed outright.

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Pirate Site Blocking Is Making Its Way Into Free Trade Agreements

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  • pro corporate candidates? I get it, they've got the best commercials and the best rallies. And the anti-corporate ones are so damn woke. Blue haired feminazis are fucking annoying. They're also powerless. Nobody, and I mean nobody listens to them except for the pro-corporate guys, who give them a mega phone every chance they get to scare the shit out of you and make you fall in line.

    When are we gonna stop falling in line?
    • You can stop voting, but it doesn't help.

      Now you have to realize that site blocking can only go so far. Obstacles leads to new inventions circumventing the obstacles.

      Ever wondered why so many ISPs delay native IPv6? That's because they have a hard time figuring out how to bind you.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by King_TJ ( 85913 )

      Problem I see is, the anti-corporates you speak of who are so "woke" are only powerless as long as they aren't handed political power.

      If given the chance, they'll be just as bad as the pro-corporate candidates. We've seen this already at the state and local level, when they've managed to align with the Democratic Party and proceed to dismantle the police/Justice system, leading to huge increases in shoplifting and other non-violent property crimes, destroying business big AND small in the area.

      At least for

      • by jonwil ( 467024 )

        Its the same in Australia, no party who is actually able to form government is willing to say no when the copyright cartel (or for that matter, the 5 eyes intelligence cartel) asks for something to be done.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        What you need is a system that distributes power, instead of concentrating it. In countries where coalition governments are the norm, corporate ownership of the government is much less common and you tend to see strong consumer and employee rights.

        In those countries, politicians have to be good at making a case on rational grounds rather than ideological ones, and in building a consensus. Corporate shills don't get very far.

        • by GoTeam ( 5042081 )

          Corporate shills don't get very far.

          That's a nice theory, but it seems to be based on your personal observations.

          • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

            Look at the pro-consumer and pro-employee rules that come from the EU.

            • by GoTeam ( 5042081 )
              Its a great goal and I'm sure some of the rules benefit citizens, but corporate shills get their share of benefits out of these rules as well. You can find things like the directive on misleading and comparative advertising that seem to be pro-consumer, but it is written to benefit businesses with the idea that some businesses advertise more honestly than others. Yes, consumers benefit from honest advertising, no argument there. However, reading through the directive, you can see how those rules could be us
      • If given the chance, they'll be just as bad as the pro-corporate candidates. We've seen this already at the state and local level, when they've managed to align with the Democratic Party and proceed to dismantle the police/Justice system, leading to huge increases in shoplifting and other non-violent property crimes, destroying business big AND small in the area.

        Examples or it ain't so.

  • Encryption + decentralization = uncensorable

    • by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <gameboyrmh.gmail@com> on Monday May 09, 2022 @10:25PM (#62518474) Journal

      We don't need anti-efficient blockchain technology to do that, we were doing it just fine with technologies like I2P and Freenet, thank you very much. Take your planet-torching ponzi grifter trash elsewhere.

      • by Anonymous Coward
        WTF. Where did the GP mention anything about blockchains???
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I2P and Freenet aren't really doing fine. Like all decentralized systems, they struggle to maintain availability of data.

    • And this where anti-encryption enforcement steps up: It shall be illegal to conceal from upload filters the nature of the content being inspected.

      Don't worry however, It doesn't effect communications services offered by the government. *evil laugh*



      Sidenote: I've had to hide this post from /.'s ASCII filter.
  • Something along the lines of this story [krebsonsecurity.com]:

    ... cybercriminals were using hacked email accounts at police departments worldwide to obtain warrantless Emergency Data Requests (EDRs) from social media firms and technology providers.

    If, theoretically, I had a hacked email account at the UK Bureau of Silly Walks, I could request that one or more ISPs in Australia block access to Twitter.

  • in the USA this may hit some 1st issues!

    • by quall ( 1441799 )

      Not really. From 1 week ago:
      https://torrentfreak.com/us-co... [torrentfreak.com]

      So a trade agreement isn't out of reach.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Yes but that isn't the same thing.
        A US judge is held to their claims of the blocked sites purpose.

        If the site actually has copyright violating material, the judges ruling is left be.
        When the site does not and is only providing content postings, a judge claiming it is a pirate site can have their ruling thrown out by a higher court, and is next to guaranteed to be thrown out by the supreme court.

        In the EU and AU, someone speaking their opinion that is arrested on charges unrelated to that, such as being a pi

      • by Revek ( 133289 )
        Judge mad a ruling that is unenforceable outside his district. Judge doens't have that much authority. Anyone can bypass a DNS block with nothing more than a host file edit. Its childish and useless.
    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      in the USA this may hit some 1st issues!

      I doubt it. That is only for nutters to defend being dicks. We're talking about megacorps here, your pesky constitution is of little concern to them.

      Also it's the US using free trade agreements to foist these laws onto other nations, bypassing their legislative assemblies and judicial systems.

      All those nutters who whined about "dictators in Brussels", you've delivered us to a worse one in Washington.

  • Average six or seven year olds will get around anything these clowns come up with. They already do.

    Good on trade negotiators for spurring along technical education if nothing else.
    • Yep - Docker container w/ download client and privoxy connected to a no log VPN. Shuts off the network if the VPN ever disconnects. I piped 4TB worth of content through that baby last month with all the public connections coming one of the VPN's nodes in a non-extradition country.
  • ... injunction against an ISP ...

    Australia (and nearly every other country) already has this. The problem is this becoming springboard to a more oppressive regulations: This will be turned into "we have to protect corporations" with consumers having fewer and fewer rights. In Australia, corporations don't have the same privileges as in the USA, making such corporatism difficult, but when it becomes a political issue, the consumers will lose.

  • Squeeze your corporate fists tighter, more media will slip through, and there's nothing you can do about it.
  • Undemocratic (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rantrantrant ( 4753443 ) on Tuesday May 10, 2022 @04:18AM (#62518820)
    Whatever you think of internet copyright infringement, there's a deeper, more fundamental issue here, which is already becoming common practice. Govts & corporations are using trade agreements to circumvent countries' democratic, legal processes. These trade agreement laws typically override democratic law & allow corporations to sue govts for passing legislation that might affect their profits, e.g. health & safety laws, child protection laws, environmental laws, patent & copyright (IP) laws. They effectively wrest legal control away from democratically elected officials (govt) & place it in the hands of corporations, leaving the electorate accountable to corporations rather than vice-versa. Want to see the return of corporations like the East India Trading Company? Then let these trade agreements take democracies away. FYI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] If you prefer dramatised accounts, this BBC series is pretty good: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3... [imdb.com]
  • Pirate websites will just go onto Tor. No blocking will work to prevent them.
  • Then what's the point of the Commonwealth if not common wealth?
  • Pirates will just have to start calling themselves either Corporations or "Job Creators".

"Pok pok pok, P'kok!" -- Superchicken

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