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Movie group attempts to force BT to block Newzbin

by Scott Bicheno on 28 June 2011, 09:58

Tags: British Telecom (LON:BT.A)

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Ominous precedent

Potentially major legal precedent could be set at the High Court in London today, as the Motion Picture Association (MPA) attempts to force BT to block access to the Usenet indexer Newzbin.

The legal establishment has so far mainly rejected attempts to make ISPs the arbiters of what is accessed online and liable for abuse of copyright. But the Digital Economy Bill (DEB) - pushed through at the end of its term by Labour - seeks to grant politicians the power to force ISPs to block sites and a request to appeal the bill from BT and Talk Talk was recently denied by the Court of Appeal, so it looks like the judiciary has been brought in line with political sentiment.

With the DEB set to come into law - apparently unopposed by the Coalition, and one of the many last-minute Labour bills that have been waved through by the new government - and the judiciary denying the right to appeal it, the current legal climate seems sympathetic to the MPA's legal action.

But this would still appear to be new legal precedent. Giving the power to force ISP blocking to politicians, who would then be lobbied by special interest groups, at least gives such action the veneer of public interest. The MPA seems to have decided to cut out the middle-man and obtain such blocking power itself.

The MPA is the international arm of the MPAA (MPA America), which represents US film and TV content producers. Newzbin has long been the focus of its ire for providing the technology to search for content on Usenet. Back in March 2010 the UK High Court found it liable for copyright infringement, and rather than pay up Newzbin went into administration. It soon reopened as Newzbin2, however, this time organised such that it was outside the reach of UK law.

BT has apparently been singled out as the largest UK ISP, and the MPA is hoping the other ISPs will take note if it wins its case. Newzbin has always insisted its technology is not designed to infringe copyright, and is merely an indexing and search tool.

 



HEXUS Forums :: 18 Comments

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It's really not going to help. Usenet is generally used by the more technically savvy amongst us and will still be able to be accessed using proxies or a Tor service. Even if they do manage to shut Newsbin down it'll be an inconvenience at most. There are other sites out there indexing and more will spring up to fill the gap.

The average internet user might be deterred but then they're mostly using torrents anyway.
I am not going to comment on if I think it should be banned or not. However I feel the reason BT do not want to ban it has more to do with the fact that they understand (unlike the court) that it is next to impossible for it to ban it. If it becomes legally responsible for banning the site, the MPA might come after BT if it fails to do the task (which it will). Sites can change IP, BT DNS servers can be bypassed, new domain names can be used, all that before using services like TOR to get arround blocks. I do find it amazing how politicians applaud getting around blocks when the user is in a “repressive state”, however are unable to accept that the same technology might be able to get around any blocks they might wish to do. Also that blocking was the same repressive thing, just doing it for a different reason.

Personally i think the copyright laws are the problem here, I think the period of copyright is too long, and there is no fair use provision or right to format shift. When we are given this, then I think it will be fair to have a crack down on “illegal” activities left.
Estimated countdown to ‘whitelisted internet’ is?
I agree that it's not going to stop anyone or cause any issues. As Betty says, those who do their pirating via usenet are by their very nature more technically aware than the general masses who are stuck with torrents - so they will simply switch to an alternate URL or start using TOR or some other anon service (which they should be doing anyway). Plus look at the piratebay, which is arguably even worse than Newzbin in terms of propogating links to pirated material..does it still exist? Of course it does.
I would expect that the bigger worry would be all those payment records that will exist for the subscription fees..since I suspect that the vast majority of people will have used their own detials + personal paypal accounts..;)

It's not about Newzbin anyway really is it, its the more general concept of internet censorship. It will be terrifying if BT are forced to give in and actually block access, as that will set a rather nasty precedent for the future.

Does give me an idea though..i'm sure you could setup a whitelabelled DSL business that blocked access to porn and other “internet nasties” permanently..there will be a market for that kind of thing i'm sure ;)
Probably serves them right for paying to pirate all that gear when the “average user” knows it is all available via torrents and file hosting sites for absolutely zilch …:rolleyes: