Wednesday, September 8th, 2021

Time	Event
8:39a	German Pirate Site Blocklist Gradually Expands with BS.to as Latest Target A few months ago, German Internet providers agreed to voluntarily block the most blatant pirate sites. The ISPs teamed up with copyright holders and launched the “Clearing Body for Copyright on the Internet” (CUII), which is in charge of handing down blocking ‘orders’. While CUII doesn’t rely on court judgments, there is some form of oversight. When copyright holders report a pirate site, a review committee first checks whether the domain is indeed linked to a website that structurally infringes copyrights. When the blocking scheme launched, streaming portal S.to was the only domain that had passed this verification process. However, the clearing body isn’t sitting still and several new domains have been added since. BS.to Added to the Blocklist This week, many users of the popular German-language streaming portal Burning Series – also known as BS.to – were locked out of the site. “[A notice] says that GUII blocked bs.to for legal reasons,” one of the site’s users mentioned yesterday, noting that he had to use a darknet browser to bypass the blocking measures. BS.to no stranger when it comes to to anti-piracy enforcement measures. The site has been targeted by Hollywood’s legal efforts, it was reported to the US Trade representative, and is already blocked in Australia. The latest blockade was implemented this week, but CUII’s decision dates back to July. It is not clear who recommended BS.to as a blocking target, however. This information is redacted in the official paperwork, which mentions an unnamed rightsholder of an American film. Structurally Infringing After reviewing the complaint, the clearing body concluded that there are sufficient grounds to add the streaming portal to the blocklist. “The request for a recommendation to block the BS.TO website is justified. The website is a structurally infringing website. There is a clear copyright violation. The blocking is reasonable and proportionate,” CUII writes. According to CUII’s recommendation, evidence provided by the research company Incopro showed that more than 90% of all content on the site links to copyright-infringing material. BS.to Points to Workarounds The BS.to operators don’t seem overly impressed by the new blocking efforts. The streaming portal was previously blocked by Vodafone and T-mobile and the site is actively encouraging people to bypass the measures by changing their DNS settings. “Some of you may have noticed that our domains are now being blocked by CUII. In order to bypass this blockade, we recommend that you change your DNS settings. Please keep yourself up to date at burningseries.domains,” a message posted a few hours ago reads. Research has shown that site blocking measures are not perfect. However, rightsholders believe that they help to deter casual pirates from accessing these sites, which will have an effect in the long run. BS.to is not the only site to be added to the German blocklist this week, the same happened to Streamkiste.tv. Previously, Newalbumreleases.net, NSW2U.com, and Canna.to were added as well. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. (Comment on this)
7:29p	The Publishers Association Ramps Up Site Blocking to Reduce Piracy For more than a decade copyright holders of all kinds have approached the UK High Court with applications for website blocking injunctions. Applicants have included entities such as the BPI (representing the major music labels) and the MPA (movies and TV shows). Over time, these groups have expanded to include organizations such as the Premier League and similar live sports broadcasters, who in the main seek to have pirate IPTV-type operations blocked by the countries leading ISPs. In 2015, The Publishers Association, a UK organization supporting members producing digital and print books, research journals and educational resources, broke new ground by becoming the first entity in the UK to use Section 97A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to obtain blocking measures. The successful High Court application resulted in an injunction requiring BT, Virgin Media, Sky, TalkTalk and EE to block domains associated with several ebook-related platforms including LibGen, Ebookee, Freshwap, AvaxHome, Bookfi, Bookre and Freebookspot. The Publishers Association Seeks to Limit Workarounds In November 2015, the blocking list was expanded to another 16 domains, many of which were deployed by proxy-type services designed to limit the effects of the High Court injunction. Until recently, there had been no public sign to suggest that The Publishers Association intended to take things further. That position changed in August when TalkTalk, one of the ISPs affected by the original injunction and subsequent update, reported that it had been ordered to block a new domain, libgen.unblockit.uno, a subdomain of the unblocking platform Unblockit, that grants access to Libgen (Library Genesis). Then this week, TalkTalk published another update which suggests that from this Friday (September 10) it will be blocking yet more domains that at least in part seek to provide access to both Libgen and Ebookee when their main domains are blocked by ISPs. They read as follows: ebookee.unblockit.ch, ebookee.nocensor.work, ebookee.123unblock.me, ebookee.mrunblock.casa, ebookee.unbl4you.club, ebookee.unbl0ck.cyou, ebookee.unblockproject.monster, ebookee.proxybit.me, libgen.unblockit.ch, libgen.nocensor.work, libgen.123unblock.me, libgen.mrunblock.casa, libgen.unbl4you.club, libgen.unbl0ck.cyou, libgen.unblockproject.monster, libgen.proxybit.me, libgen.unblockit.uno Domain Blocks Risk Becoming Outdated Since the original Publishers Association injunction is six years old already, it’s unclear what type of anticipatory measures were built in from the start. More recent injunctions include options to dynamically adapt to superficial domain and IP address changes that seek to mitigate their effects but if these are not present in the Publishers Association case, they may already be drifting out of date. Unblockit.uno and unblockit.ch, for example, appear to have switched to unblockit.ws, a domain that isn’t listed in the TalkTalk blocking list. The problem is only compounded when visitors to that domain find a list to a whole range of other ebook download sites including Sci-Hub, DownloadBooks, Ebook777, BookSC, ZLibrary and Ebook3000, among others. Publishing Anti-Piracy Groups Remain Active While The Publishers Association has yet to publicly chase down ebook pirates themselves, there is no shortage of action by similar groups elsewhere. Late last week, Danish anti-piracy group Rights Alliance reported that a 28-year-old former student had been charged with distributing illegal copies of textbooks via several online platforms over a two-year period. In addition, huge pressure is being applied to Alexandra Elbakyan, the now-infamous operator of Sci-Hub. The site celebrated its 10th anniversary this week by uploading an additional 2.3m papers to its archives but is also facing legal problems on multiple fronts, including what is already an important case in India. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. (Comment on this)

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