Schoolchildren criticize "vigilante justice" by the Copyright Clearing House
A 17-year-old has published a website that shows which sites are blocked at the request of a private clearing house.
Website of Damian and his friends, which is intended to provide more transparency for blocked websites.
(Image: Damian)
A 17-year-old student from Germany, called Damian, has published a secret list showing which websites in Germany are being blocked at the instigation of a private organization. The Clearingstelle Urheberrecht im Internet (CUII), a cooperation between internet providers and rights holders set up in 2021, has ordered the blocking of 144 websites that offer films, music, games and sports broadcasts without the consent of the authors. Damian criticizes this procedure and advocates more transparency in dealing with Internet censorship. heise.de has also already ended up in 1&1's copyright filter.
CUII is a kind of "vigilante justice"
In an interview with Netzpolitik, the student explains his motives: He sees the work of the CUII as a "kind of vigilante justice" without judicial control, which in his opinion is questionable under constitutional law. The CUII makes decisions on Internet blocks, which can also be extended to mirror domains without a new review procedure. This is done without involving the Federal Network Agency. This circumvents the right to free information, which is enshrined in the German Basic Law.
With regard to the blocking of the Sci-Hub shadow library, the CUII listed the blocked websites, but did not list other sites belonging to the site that were also blocked. Damian and other critics therefore criticize the lack of transparency and see a danger for the free Internet, as legal content can also be affected by the blanket blocking of entire domains.
With the website cuiiliste.de, Damian wants to ensure more transparency. He originally designed the website to archive blocked pages. Thanks to a leaked CUII blocklist, he now publishes the addresses of blocked domains there. A script regularly checks whether the list is up to date. Damian also shows how the blocks can be circumvented by suggesting alternative DNS servers to bypass the CUII blocks.
Importance for the scientific community
The CUII blocklist also has an impact on the scientific community. For example, the Sci-Hub platform, which makes scientific works accessible that are often state-funded but offered by publishers at high prices, is blocked. This highlights the tension between copyright protection and free access to knowledge.
(mack)