Denmark Blocked 141 Pirate Sites in 2019 But Pirates Are Bypassing The System

[Matrix]

 

Danish anti-piracy group Rights Alliance has revealed that during 2019 it had 141 'pirate' sites blocked by local ISPs. When compared to 2018, visits to pirate sites were down 40% in 2019, partly as a result. Interestingly, however, the number of people who pirate in the country remains unchanged as tech-savvy users deploy circumvention methods including VPNs and alternative DNS providers.

 

 

Site-blocking to disrupt copyright infringement now takes place in dozens of countries around the world, with its supposed benefits currently being aggressively promoted to lawmakers in the United States.

 

Having been pioneered in the country more than a decade ago, site-blocking is old news in Denmark but is still one of the preferred methods to reduce access to ‘pirate’ sites. Indeed, according to a report published by leading anti-piracy group Rights Alliance, during 2019 alone it managed to have 141 sites blocked by the majority of ISPs in the country.

 

In tandem with other anti-piracy initiatives, this appears to have had a drastic effect on local visits to pirate sites. According to the group, in 2018 Danes visited pirate sites 239 million times yet in 2019, that figure was down to 146 million, an impressive 40 percent drop.

 

When copyright groups measure the effectiveness of blockades it’s worth noting that they often measure traffic levels to the domains that have been blocked. When nearly all ISPs in a country participate in blocking, which is the case in Denmark, there will quite clearly be a reduction in visits to those specific domains. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that people aren’t still using them or, indeed, alternative platforms.

 

Indeed, Rights Alliance (RA) notes that despite the reductions in traffic to ‘pirate’ domains, a recent study revealed that the number of pirates in Denmark hasn’t reduced at all.

 

“According to Mediavision’s annual user behavior survey in the Nordic countries, the proportion of Danish 15 to 74-year-olds who download or stream movies and TV series is stable at 10 percent, which it has been since 2016. This corresponds to approximately 450,000 Danes using illegal sites annually,” RA notes.

 

“An explanation of the decreased number of visits, but the stable number of users, we partly attribute to the blocking effect, but other causal explanations are also available. Namely, the Mediavision study points out the Danes’ use of so-called VPN connections and the use of alternative DNS providers that allow the blocking to be bypassed.”

 

When questioned for the survey, 17% of Danish Internet users said they use a VPN. However, when the subset of self-confessed pirates were asked the same question, 44% admitted to using a VPN to access pirated movies. According to RA, this indicates that VPNs are widely used by pirates so the 40% drop in traffic to pirate sites could be overstated.

 

“The study thus shows that VPN connections are very widespread among those who stream and download illegally so their use of illegal websites is not included in the aforementioned 146 million visits. The figure may actually be higher,” RA adds.

 

The problem is replicated when looking at how Danish ISPs block their subscribers’ access to pirate sites. Court orders allow them to block by interfering with DNS but users are apparently well aware that if they switch to a DNS provider that isn’t run by their ISP but by OpenDNS or Google, for example, blocking can be bypassed.

 

So-called alternative DNS providers are also being used by more Danes who illegally download or stream movies and TV series than the general population,” RA reports.

 

“Ten percent of Danes who do not stream or download illegally have heard of alternative DNS providers, and out of them, 35 percent use them. If you look at the Danes who stream and download illegally, 23 percent have knowledge of DNS providers and as many as 97 percent use them.”

 

The end result is that despite widespread blocking and a headline drop in traffic to pirate sites, the number of pirate consumers remains stable, apparently undeterred by the measures. So the big question remains: what can be done to further reduce piracy levels?

 

On the blocking front, RA is pushing the concept of so-called ‘trusted notifiers’, i.e organizations or groups that have access to a streamlined blocking mechanism, preferably handled by a single court dealing with IP crime.

 

Also on the table is potential action by SØIK, the State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime, which could require ISPs to block sites without a court process.

 

In respect of enforcement, Rights Alliance says that it has also identified a number of individuals who have “made extensive use of illegal services.” Data about them and their activities has been passed to the IP Task Force at SØIK but what will become of those referrals remains unclear.

 

The full report can be found here (Danish, pdf)

 

Source

[halvgris]

by blocking url's in one country other countrys follow.

[FaeGiN]

When you are one who uses such things as VPN and also a custom DNS on your PC,  this kind of thing makes for pretty funny reading! That these courts think that such measures will deter people who know what they want to find online, is ridiculous. It takes me a few seconds to bypass the UK restrictions on a computer with no vpn and a ISP DNS in use. It's not difficult as everyone here knows.

At best, these measures are a minor inconvenience! 🙂

[zanderthunder]

Thanks to dumb anti-piracy groups and enforcers, they just "promoting" these piracy sites to everyone.

It only takes changing the DNS and using VPN (if neccessary) to bypass the ISP block, therefore making these sites available to everyone.

Till then, their actions are still futile.

[FaeGiN]

On 5/4/2020 at 9:39 AM, zanderthunder said:

Thanks to dumb anti-piracy groups and enforcers, they just "promoting" these piracy sites to everyone.

It only takes changing the DNS and using VPN (if neccessary) to bypass the ISP block, therefore making these sites available to everyone.

Till then, their actions are still futile.

 

You're not wrong. I have on numerous occasions seen the following message on google:

'some search results were ommited blah blah because of piracy and rights holder claims but fear not my illegal file searching friend! If you want to see the HUGE list of pirate site URLs (for probably quite a few sites you hadn't seen ever before, as well as the usual ones you know well), then just click this link and our friendly warez site database site (called chillingEffects.org) will serve you up a nice list of all kinds of torrent and warez sites. We will of course also supply you with an example filename from each site therefore you can make an informed decision as to whether it may have what you're looking for today or not. If not, don't worry, we have LOADS MORE URLS FOR YOU!

There is no better supplier of warez site lists on the net!

  If, for example you need some renewed streaming sites cos your ISP blocked them again or the sites died again (and if crap quality video is your thing!) then try googling some recent movie and then chilling effects will be called upon and soon will be serving you a platter of those instead of downloading site links. Get it?. What your unlikely friend Google is trying to tell you is that Whatever kind of file you are on the hunt for, be it ebook, movie, tv episode or series, game or software, just throw a rather obvious search at us first and we will serve you up a link to chilling effects with, hopefully, just what you're looking for.

So what are you waiting for f00!?

Come get da warez!'  (Yes, actually, some people DO still use that word.)

 

Yeah. I've seen that message quite a few times by now.

That chilling effects site sounds great. I've never had the guts to try it.

😁😎😉

 

[FaeGiN]

Just to add to my last post

They've stopped it all now. Removed themselves from Google results. Awww shame.

 

https://searchengineland.com/anti-censorship-database-chilling-effects-censors-removing-domain-search-212567

[zanderthunder]

54 minutes ago, FaeGiN said:

Just to add to my last post

They've stopped it all now. Removed themselves from Google results. Awww shame.

 

https://searchengineland.com/anti-censorship-database-chilling-effects-censors-removing-domain-search-212567

You should know that Chilling Effects are now known as Lumen Database.

[FaeGiN]

I know that lol....you dont think I knew the rest without having discovered that along the way right? I just didnt bother correcting it cos I've called it chilling effects for so long its a habit. That'll teach me to be lazy..  But yeah, thanks 😁😉🐰

[d5aqoep]

Worse is ISPs using DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) and sending TCP RST to your browser which resets connection. A simple DNS change won't stop ISPs from meddling with your personal internet traffic. One can use GoodByeDPI script from github or VPN to bypass DPI.

[zanderthunder]

1 hour ago, d5aqoep said:

Worse is ISPs using DPI (Deep Packet Inspection) and sending TCP RST to your browser which resets connection. A simple DNS change won't stop ISPs from meddling with your personal internet traffic. One can use GoodByeDPI script from github or VPN to bypass DPI.

This is very interesting though. 

Anyway, found some alternatives to block DPI though.
Green Tunnel - https://github.com/SadeghHayeri/GreenTunnel
Power Tunnel - https://github.com/krlvm/PowerTunnel

So far at my country, they didn't use DPI at all when it comes to website censorship.

But based on your comment, I might adopting these DPI bypasser should the blockade uses DPI method.