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'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling
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Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling
#112For those who (like me) missed the essential key word in the OP's title: This ruling is about copyright, and seems mostly unrelated to recent conversations about escaping censorship and surveilance, and the overall final throes of the open web. It's still pretty important since the lawsuit filed by the Anne Frank Fonds could be caricatured as "if this content is illegal in our country, it should not be on the Interne…
Somewhat related to this same debate on censorship: French regulators order block of Polymarket's website [0] > The French gambling regulator said the site's continued availability constituted advertising. A ban on financial transactions to the site was already in place. After failing to compel Polymarket to geoblock France, it's crazy that French "regulators" can just order ISPs to block a website without any judici…
> it's crazy that French "regulators" can just order ISPs to block a website without any judicial review just because the mere existence of it on the internet constitutes "advertising" to French people.
This is entirely normal if you subscribe to any form of current/past neoliberal ideology surrounding trade, borders and embargos. If you believe that an embargo towards a certain country or business is valid because you believe they are a threat to national/public security, I see little difference between that and ISPs being forbidden from working with certain companies/websites/ip ranges
Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a red herring. We're not arguing about whether it is standard for governments to attempt to exercise maximal control. We're arguing about whether governments executing censorship regimes via ISPs (like the Chinese Communist Party) without any balanced legal proceedings is a good thing. And no, it does not happen like that in the US.
Sorry if I come across as being pedantic but it's actually the Communist Party of China - the CPC, even though many, esp. in the US, use the wrong abbreviation - CCP.
Um actually it's 中国共产党
Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
US regulators don't order ISPs to block websites. The FBI will occasionally seize a domain, but only after a court order.
Also notice that the FBI has no jurisdiction over foreign domains. It happens that the .com (in addition to .us) registry is in the US, but e.g. the .ru registry is in Russia and not under the jurisdiction of US courts.
Unless it's .tv or .to or .me or many others that are administered by organisations under the control of the US. The US seized Telegram's domain t.me by using an "OFAC sanction" whatever that is.
Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you aware it’s the case in the US too? I don’t see what is supposed to be bad or terrifying here. French regulators (why the scare quotes?) entire reason d‘être is what you frame as suspicious, but it’s pretty standard, the state governs the infrastructure in its territory
This is a red herring. We're not arguing about whether it is standard for governments to attempt to exercise maximal control. We're arguing about whether governments executing censorship regimes via ISPs (like the Chinese Communist Party) without any balanced legal proceedings is a good thing. And no, it does not happen like that in the US.
Is it the norm in France for the regulator to block gambling sites without a court process? Polymarket is obviously a gambling site, so if so, this is no surprise. Polymarket can probably challenge the decision in a court process.
Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
So why are all 50 US states not allowing sports betting?
I don't care about sports betting. I care about government blocking websites just because it exists on the internet. It was already illegal for Polymarket to accept bets from French people. FanDuel cannot operate in France but their website isn't blocked. So how do we explain this? France, EU, Italy, Spain, La Liga are just consistently making fools out of themselves trying to block everything on the internet when th…
So if something is illegal you don't think it's moral to enforce that people don't do it because just being illegal should be enough?
Note there's no liability on the ISPs, they do not have to pay a fine for not having blocked it, they do not have to ban alternative DNS. In Europe there is apparently a legal mindset that you can recruit a third party to conduct an action that is not onerous to enforce a blockade. A court can point to someone who has a DNS server and order them to block certain lookups.
Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling
#117> The case centered on the copyright battle involving Anne Frank's diary If there's a copyright dispute somewhere, you can bet it's either Anne Frank's estate, Tolkien's estate, or the Beatles's old record label. It's never the authors who actually made the work. It's always their heirs.
For more like this, see the list of banned authors on MAM. I believe JK Rowling is one.
Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling
#118Age verification + plus some states trying to ban VPNs - what states miss - yeah they will destroy the so called big social networks or media providers like porn aggregation sites. what will simply happen - due to the following - HDDs are cheap, Torrents, Open source / cheap community software like Discord - communities will move to be mostly private and small. era of large social media is done. for media - download…
This is hard to read, but I think you're saying the Internet will see a shift to "Sneaker Net" like tactics where people torrent stuff, store it on HDDs, and just move those HDDs around? Like they do in Cuba: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTTno8D-b2E For the most part, I agree.
Usenet and email were also designed to work like this. The underlying transport layer was called UUCP.
Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling
#119Hopefully this ruling adds to some precedent in favour of VPNs to future court battles attacking VPNs for circumventing age verification.
There isn't precedent in the civil-law system in Europe. Every case is decided individually. However, this will probably influence whether someone decides to attack VPNs.
Re: 'VPNs are lawful technical tools,' says EU Court in landmark copyright ruling
#120Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. The way to fight piracy is to offer a better service than the pirates. Simple as.
High prices might be an incentive for piracy but it cannot be a justification. It's a bit like saying it's okay to sneak into a movie theater because the prices for movie tickets are too high. To me, I feel it's an integral part of a democracy that if there is a law you don't like, you have means to get it changed, but it always involves convincing others that your viewpoint is the one everyone should adhere to. Like…
Convincing others to get a law changed from scratch has never really worked. What has to happen is that people have to be fed up with working around the law.