Court Says Dutch Anti-Piracy Organization Overreached; Won't Shut Down Pirate Party Proxy Site

from the good-news dept

Tue, Apr 17th 2012 2:29pm — Mike Masnick

We just wrote about the bizarre process in the Netherlands, where the Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN was able to get a court injunction to order the Dutch Pirate Party to stop hosting a proxy service that redirected people to The Pirate Bay, and then tried to get the Party in trouble for merely pointing people to links of other proxies that could take them to The Pirate Bay. All of this went way beyond the initial order barring access to The Pirate Bay and (more importantly) was done without letting the Dutch Pirate Party have its side heard by the court. There was an interesting discussion in our comments, in which one individual insisted that completely changing the nature of the original injunction was no big deal, and there was simply no reason for the Pirate Party to be heard from, since there was no adversarial issue to adjudicate. That, of course, is ridiculous -- because a political party was being censored, way outside the bounds of the original injunction.

Thankfully, a court in The Hague seems to be realizing that BREIN keeps changing the rules after the fact. It has said that BREIN can't demand that the Dutch Pirate Party take down a general proxy -- as opposed to the specific reverse proxy that only went to TPB. The more general proxy has to be allowed. Next week, the court will explore more fully if the specific proxy really should have been taken down as well. It's good to see the court recognizing that just because BREIN wants to (impossibly) block all access to TPB, it doesn't get to play whac-a-mole by continually changing what the ruling actually said.

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Filed Under: brein, dutch pirate party, the hague, the pirate bay

21 Comments

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fb39ca4, 17 Apr 2012 @ 2:42pm

With a new article out...Fire the Troll Cannons!
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- Anonymous Coward, 17 Apr 2012 @ 3:28pm
  
  Re:
  Is this like at the fair when they shoot clowns out of the cannon for amusement of the crowd?
  
  Or more like for killing pirates?
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Apr 2012 @ 2:52pm

Where you at purple?
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120416/13343018513/dutch-whac-a-mole-game-against-pirate-bay-ap parently-works-better-without-due-process.shtml#c5

gonna come admit how wrong and stupid you are?
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- G Thompson (profile), 17 Apr 2012 @ 10:26pm
  
  Re:
  I doubt it, though It would nice to have an apology that I could frame and then wack upside its head the next time it makes deluded comments!
  
  http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120416/13343018513/dutch-whac-a-mole-game-against-pi rate-bay-apparently-works-better-without-due-process.shtml#c480
  
  Oh purple??? where art thou.. come out to play.....
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Apr 2012 @ 2:57pm

must have been a different judge to have made this decision, going against BREIN, but could have been done just for show.

glad there is going to be but there shouldn't even have to be another case. the original judge was way out of order, biased in fact, by not allowing evidence from both sides to be heard. he is supposed to rule in a JUST manner, instead, he sided with BREIN from the outset and deserves to be severely reprimanded at least! no wonder people have little, if any, faith in the legal systems.
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- :Lobo Santo (profile), 17 Apr 2012 @ 3:04pm
  
  Re: Faith
  Faith? in the legal system??
  
  Ha! Laws are some the most brittle yet supple things ever made. They can be twisted and contorted in amazing ways without breaking--and other times they're broken by nothing more than a cross word.
  
  Here's the only thing anybody needs to know about the legal system: S/He who has the most expensive lawyer wins.
  
  Ergo, you can buy justice, but only if you can afford to pay more than the other person.
  
  Also: Your court appointed attorney doesn't actually represent your interests.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Apr 2012 @ 2:57pm

Tomorrow, after the judges at The Hague receive their "information packets" from BREIN, they will reverse their decision.

Information packet includes:

A bunch of manufactured evidence using Hollywood Accounting.
Cash, to cover the judge's time to "understand" the included evidence.
A year supply of Rice-O-Roni the San Francisco treat.
And a copy of the home game.
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- The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 12:16am
  
  Re:
  Damn, I should have been a judge instead of a sysadmin. I'm lucky to even get free, if terrible, coffee while at work.
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  - G Thompson (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 2:39am
    
    Re: Re:
    But sysadmins are great ;P
    
    http://azo.daemonette.org/pix/sysadmin/choose_to_sysadmin.jpg
    
    [Go back in the path to find amazing images for sysadmins.. the lusers one is the best]
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Apr 2012 @ 3:21pm

YES!! Go, Go, Pirate Friends!! Yeah, Piracy!!! Three cheers for Pirate Mike!!! I'm SO HAPPY! OMG!!!!!!!
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- ?, 17 Apr 2012 @ 3:29pm
  
  Re:
  why you foamin breh?
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- techflaws.org (profile), 17 Apr 2012 @ 10:17pm
  
  Re:
  Boring troll is boring.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
- G Thompson (profile), 17 Apr 2012 @ 10:26pm
  
  Re:
  I see the drugs have kicked in
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  - The eejit (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 1:45am
    
    Re: Re:
    Who needs drugs when you're given free shaftings by your bosses if you don't toe the line?
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Apr 2012 @ 3:50pm

They pointed people to links to proxies for a site that tracked other hosts which made possibly infringing content available? Scandalous!
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- The Mighty Buzzard (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 12:19am
  
  Re:
  Agreed. This of course necessitates that BREIN withdraw their complaint as the paperwork lists the addresses of proxies.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Apr 2012 @ 5:49pm

"That, of course, is ridiculous -- because a political party was being censored, way outside the bounds of the original injunction."

Political censorship derived from preventing a link to infringing content? What an imagination!
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- surfer (profile), 17 Apr 2012 @ 6:30pm
  
  Re: Infringing File
  are you sure that file was infringing? is it more like you don't understand how links work, and how to find out who is actually, physically, hosting the file in question? did you cavity search the file to ensure it was infringing? were there other files in close approximation? what were their names?
  
  I'm not completely convinced that file was infringing unless you can prove otherwise.
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- Brendan (profile), 17 Apr 2012 @ 8:57pm
  
  Re:
  The Pirate Bay does host any content. I serves directions on where to find content elsewhere. Some of that content is infringing in many jurisdiction. Though, importantly, not _all_ of the content is infringing in all jurisdictions. Some content is protected free speech. You don't get to block that stuff.
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Marcel de Jong (profile), 18 Apr 2012 @ 3:55am

Thank you, BREIN
I, for one, would like to thank BREIN for pointing me to several good open proxies that I can use to access sites they deemed not worthy for me.

The ISP I have is one of the two that were ordered to block all traffic to a certain site. And ever since then, I hadn't even looked for any way of circumventing, instead I opted to do the civil thing and not download, buy or rent anything backed by these bozos.

But after the overreaching of BREIN with regards to the open proxies of among others the Pirate Party. I decided to try a little civil disobedience and download a show, legally I might add, because not all content on The Pirate Bay is put there illegally.

Fuck you very much, BREIN.
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Joe, 18 Apr 2012 @ 6:58am

Proxies
Can someone please explain what a generic proxy is and what a reverse proxy is? Similarities and differences? Thank you.
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