Danish Pirate Site Blocking Updated, Telecoms Group Publishes All Domains

Rights Alliance and ISPs have agreed to update their code of conduct to block pirate sites more quickly in Denmark. When one ISP receives an instruction to block a domain, a new process will see other ISPs follow in less than seven days. Meanwhile, Denmark's Telecommunications Industry Association is publishing files that reveal precisely which domains are being blocked. TorrentFreak reports: Both Rights Alliance and Teleindustrien (Telecommunications Industry Association in Denmark) have published copies of the new Code of Conduct but neither explain how the new system will work. Indeed, the CoC contains a paragraph that explains that a section detailing the individual steps, procedures and criteria, has been withheld "in order to achieve the purpose of the agreement." Given that Denmark's blocking program is DNS-based, it's trivial for ISPs to modify local DNS entries to redirect pirate site visitors to Share With Care (SWC), a portal designed to encourage pirates back on to the legal path of authorized content services. Somewhat intrigued by the apparent need for secrecy, we took a closer look at Teleindustrien and to our surprise, found the complete opposite.

It appears that when ISPs are ordered to block domains for any reason, Teleindustrien goes public with three things: the laws under which the blocking was ordered, who ordered the blocking, and which domains were blocked in response. For example, the telecoms industry group details recent blocks associated with the Ukraine conflict (including RT.com and sputniknews.com) and publishes the domains to an easily downloadable .csv file -- perfect for ISPs looking to implement DNS blocking. Another .csv file is published for gambling site domains deemed illegal in Denmark, 183 according to the latest batch.

The data relating to Denmark's pirate site blocking program reveals how quickly it has expanded over the years. In 2017, Danish ISPs were blocking around 100 pirate sites, a figure that jumped to 478 in 2020. The latest .csv file containing the list of blocked piracy domains is dated September 27, 2022. It contains 892 URLs -- some of them domains in their own right and others representing sub-domains on various sites dedicated to unblocking. It's unclear how the new streamlining provisions in the revised Code of Conduct can beat pulling a plain text file from a website but Teleindustrian also provides the data in PDF format (PDF) for the Adobe fans out there.

Circumvention? How do we do it?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the only question to ask now... Let's see if the internet can really route around the damage

Re: Circumvention? How do we do it?

[rpresser]

just use a different dns provider, through vpn if need be.

Re:

[Kernel Kurtz]

I'm in Canada, but just connected via Private Internet Access to a VPN server in Denmark, then I went to Pirate Bay and am now downloading a movie via my VPN server in Denmark. Bring on the DPI. Maybe I'll connect to Sweden instead LOL.

Re:

[Shane A Leslie]

Stop tea-bagging the Capitalists, it's embarrassing them. :)

Re:

[RitchCraft]

Yep, so trivial to get around this shit. Offer good products at a good price and you wouldn't need to waste time on blocking sites.

Re:

[ls671]

LOL! You don't even need a VPN to access those sites. There are plenty of freely available http and SOCKS proxies.

I guess it might block technology unaware users and make copyright owners feel good although.

Re:

[SirSpanksALot]

The intent of these things is to make pirating just enough of a hassle that the vast majority of people won't bother. To make pirating hassle free, you have to put a bit of funds into doing it. If you're not doing a home media server with plex/radarr/sonarr to handle it, then I wouldn't bother

Re:

[Kisai]

Most of those domains you'll probably find lead to domain parking pages.

The problem with "routing around damage" is that the damage has to be small in the first place. Torrents are good at routing around damage, but torrents still rely on a "tracker" site, and that site can be blocked, making the torrents impossible to initiate.

Large damage, eg, damage to infrastructure, is hard to route around. Cutting the internet off to a section of a country that's only fed by one connection can't be routed around. Not

Re:

[1s44c]

VPN to another country. VPN services are cheap, easy, and performant enough.

Or you could setup your own DNS resolver and tell your machines to use that. It's not really hard to setup a DNS server but the VPN route is probably easier for most people.

Re:

[drinkypoo]

Or you could setup your own DNS resolver and tell your machines to use that. It's not really hard to setup a DNS server but the VPN route is probably easier for most people.

set up a pihole and solve two problems at once

ugh this shit again

[serviscope_minor]

So firstly, I would download a car. No comment on shooting a policeman and stealing his helmet then going to the toilet in his helmet, delivering it to his greiving widow then stealing it again.

Secondly, the best way to prevent piracy is to provide a better product at a reasonable price. The split into many separate subscription services to they can chase those sweet sweet recurring subscription fees is not that. And no fuckery with the UI either in pirated media either. Works across all devices of all ages with or without a good internet connection.

The paid service should actually be better to use.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

I went to their website to find some legal sources. There's no search, just a list of websites. The only ones I recognize are all broken by DRM and don't work on my gear.

Re:

[ickleberry]

They sure love dhurrum

Re:

[thegarbz]

So firstly, I would download a car.

I used to use this line as a joke, then I bought a 3D printer and once got in a pickle during a project and quickly downloaded a design of a $100 commercial part and printed it for $1. Did the job perfectly.

We are in the world of downloading physical objects now, and people actively do it.

Nice list

[TwistedGreen]

Thanks for the list of sites! I'll check them out.

Re:

[Deal In One]

Exactly what I was thinking.

I have not used TPB and company for the pass few years since I was not bothered about it much. But no harm getting the list for future reference.

The bad, the good, the ugly

[Anonymous Coward]

The bad: Blocking happens at all.

The good: They're at least open about what's being done and who's responsible. Too many others are not.

The ugly: Political censorship.

No, I don't care how much you think blocking sputniknews and RT and so on is justified in the light of, yadda yadda. It's political, it's censorship, and that makes political censorship. No way around that.

For a bonus, the insidious: This is function creep. "Hey we can block that. Why not this also?" Hot slippery slope action right there.

Re: The bad, the good, the ugly

[simlox]

Yep, forced apon us by the EU. Certain European countries have a ban on nazi propaganda and are therefore not foreign to political censorship.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Pray tell, what part of the Danish blocking system is forced by the EU?

Living in Europe, I'm not entirely happy with the nazi-stuff ban but it's hard to see how Germany wouldn't ban the symbols and paraphernalia of the ideology that had just fueled quite a lot of war deaths, and then went on and murdered severel million civilians deemed "sub-human". So I see it as more of a hate speech ban than political speech censorship.

I think there are better examples of political censorship to be found, even in Europ

Re:

[1s44c]

The Nazi ban is German national law. It's not EU mandated.

Re:

[Carewolf]

At his point in time it is a necessary defense of democracy. Too many expat russians still getting propaganda from Russia state media. And stopping non free media from pushing deliberate lies is a lot different than blocking free media which may accidentally push untrue stories.

Sigh

[ledow]

Because all the blocking up until now has been highly effective and good value and stopped or at least severely hindered the entire worldwide piracy industry, hasn't it?

So, obviously, what you need is just more of that, right? To stamp it out to zero.

I'm not even a pirate - I literally paid for WinZIP and all my other shareware, even back in the day, and have a DVD copy of everything that I want to watch - but working in school IT even I can name a dozen websites where you can download or stream any movie