thanks to the internet's neutral
globally uniform architecture billions
of people around the world can access
knowledge and information freely this
access to information is supposed to be
free of influence by governments or big
business but internet freedom is under
threat Sony music has brought a legal
attack against a critical part of the
internet's infrastructure the service
known as a domain name system or DNS
resolver the DNS resolver being attacked
is run by a public benefit
not-for-profit donation-funded
organization the quad 9 Foundation a DNS
resolver is like a neutral automatic
signpost it works like this when you
connect to an internet web page your
device sends a request containing the
domain name to a DNS resolver which
replies with the website's IP address
your device is then able to send its
query across the internet to the website
you want to visit
in everyday life one rarely notices
these important signposts
most people just use the default DNS
resolver furnished by their internet
provider or because it offers additional
security features and is more privacy
friendly many people choose the quad 9
resolver it is against this resolver
that Sony music has obtained an
injunction because of this quad 9 has
been forced to block the DNS resolution
of a certain web page a page that Sony
alleges contains information that would
help people infringe one of their
copyrights but Sony does not seem to
care about the actual copyright
infringement Sony music is located in
New York
quad 9 is in Zurich Switzerland but Sony
filed their lawsuit at a Regional Court
in Hamburg Germany which is notorious
for finding in favor of plaintiffs in
copyright disputes
three days after quad nine moved from
the United States to Switzerland chosen
for its strong legal protections for
privacy and human rights Sony attacked
using the loophole of the Hamburg Court
Sony's attack on quad 9 is a test case
if their intimidation is allowed to
succeed it will have a chilling effect
on the free public infrastructure at the
heart of the internet
because of the preliminary injunction
quad 9 is forced to choose between two
bad options either at an expensive and
performance degrading function to
distinguish queries which originated in
Germany or block these web pages
globally but both approaches are
dangerous in the first approach public
resources are co-opted to the benefit of
a private party and the detriment of the
public
the second approach is even worse
extending the violation of civil rights
globally
if that happens it could become everyday
practice for intellectual property
holders anywhere in the world to dictate
lists of websites to be censored making
them inaccessible to users all over the
world though this case may seem
insignificant there is a lot at stake
most internet operators will have no
choice but to block a website at the
mere request of a company just to keep
from being sued into bankruptcy if Sony
Music gets away with this lawsuit they
will have paved the way for a
potentially unlimited number of
additional censorship demands
that's why the German Society for civil
rights and other organizations are
providing legal and financial support to
defend the quad 9 Foundation against
this attack
if you want to help share this video
support quad 9 with a donation or
explain this situation to others
together we can help quad 9 fight for
your freedom of information and together
as civil society we can stand up to the
corporate giants like Sony music