Why a student is campaigning for more transparency when blocking domains

Right at the start of the "Copyright Clearing House on the Internet" (CUII) project, experts such as Felix Reda voiced criticism. According to Reda, such private network blocks without a court order, but with the consent of the Federal Network Agency, which is responsible for safeguarding net neutrality, would pave the way for further extrajudicial restrictions on freedom of communication.

A student who calls himself Damian also took up the criticism together with his friends after a list of blocked domains was leaked to him. To this end, they run a website that lists all domains blocked by the CUII. The German Federal Network Agency is "only checking the compatibility of the DNS blocks recommended by the CUII with net neutrality", according to a request from heise online.

Damian reports that 41 domains have no longer been blocked since the end of August. The CUII told heise online that it has been responsible for unblocking around 55 domains since August 2024. To date, it has had "DNS blocks put in place for over 130 domains on the initiative of CUII rights holders" lifted again.

When asked why the CUII does not list the domains affected by the block, it says: "The blocked domains are used for commercial offenses. Publishing the list would encourage these crimes. In addition, publication would enable the criminal domain owners to take circumvention measures".

Are blocks in line with net neutrality?

If the reason for a network block no longer exists, it must also be lifted again. "According to No. 9 of the CUII's Code of Conduct (PDF), rights holders are obliged to check at regular intervals whether the reason for the block still exists and, if necessary, to inform the CUII that the network block can be lifted", said a BNetzA spokesperson. The BNetzA is currently examining whether the "requirements for a network neutrality-compliant block" are no longer fulfilled.

No official list of blocked domains

There is no official list of the websites to be blocked; the BNetzA referred to the student's website for an overview. He taught himself how to program, initially with Scratch. Apart from syntax, you don't learn that much about programming at school, says Damian. We spoke to Damian, who currently has a "small admin job", about the website he and his friends have created.

heise online: Why did you make it your mission to provide information about domain blocking?

Damian: I thought the site Cuiiliste.de, which already existed in the past and was then closed by the operator, was pretty cool. However, I wanted to bring more technology into it and provide an automated version that shows how and when which site is blocked. It was meant to be a fun project during the school vacations and then we went for it. I myself had never seen a blocked page before and only found out from an article that there was something like this in Germany. Then I was amazed at which participants belong to the CUII alliance.

There have also been cases where sites were blocked that were not allowed to be blocked. According to our research, 41 domains were wrongly blocked (as of 23.08.2024), some of them for two years. When I asked the CUII why Serien.sx was blocked, it was suddenly unblocked, but I did not receive an answer. After a journalist from Netzpolitik.org made a further inquiry and also mentioned Burningseries.tw, it was also unblocked. Since the end of August, 39 of the 41 wrongly blocked domains have been unblocked, presumably due to the reporting.

How do you proceed?

We use our script to check with the ISPs every minute to see if the domain exists, and we can then see from the response whether it is still blocked. We can even see when which internet provider unblocks a domain.

Why do you criticize the CUII?

My main criticism of the CUII is that a private body decides which sites are blocked and keeps the currently blocked domains "secret".

But the lack of transparency is also problematic. There is not even an official list of blocked sites. The CUII is actually also obliged to carry out monitoring to ensure that the claims about the domain blocks are still valid. And this was not the case for at least a third of the sites. Although the CUII unblocked two sites, it also unblocked 37 other domains that had been unlawfully blocked for months or years.

Isn't it better to permanently block sites where copyright infringements have been committed?

I think DNS blocks are very extreme in themselves. If the CUII does not fulfill its obligations when blocking these sites and the sites are blocked for longer than permitted, I see this as an extreme problem. It is also problematic if, for example, the state blocks domains for too long, even if they no longer contain prohibited content; this would severely restrict the fundamental right to freedom of information (Article 5 of the Basic Law). However, I am not yet aware of anything like this happening.

However, the CUII is not a state, but a private group that does not have to protect our fundamental rights. CUII members must abide by the rules of net neutrality – an internet in which large companies control what is accessible sounds rather dystopian. However, CUII members are of course concerned about the protection of copyright, which is sometimes difficult to enforce without net blocking.

Nevertheless, I believe that network blocking "interferes" too much with the free Internet, especially for something "relatively harmless" like copyright infringement. I'm more in favor of sanctioning something like propaganda. But if there are such network blocks, then they should also be used with the utmost caution. But that is not the case at the moment.

(mack)