Photo: Thomas Martinsen

New Code of Conduct agreement between the Telecommunications Industry and the Rights Alliance ensures more effective enforcement

May 22, 2020 | Collaborations

22. May 2020

The Code of Conduct, which is the focal point for the blocking collaboration between Danish internet providers in the Telecommunications Industry and Rights Alliance, has been revised in order to keep up with developments in the illegal market.

In 2013, Rights Alliance, the Ministry of Culture and the Telecommunications Industry, which represents Danish internet providers, began a collaboration called Share With Care (SWC), which deals with blocking illegal websites and user information.

A focal point in SWC co-operation and in the fight against illegal services on the Internet is a so-called Code of Conduct (CoC), which obliges members of the Telecommunications Industry to quickly and efficiently block services that have been ruled illegal by a court. The blocking is effectuated through a ‘blocking sign’, which users encounter when attempting to access an illegal service.

However, the illegal market is constantly evolving, and therefore it has been necessary to revise the CoC agreement in order to be able to keep up with the creative manoeuvres of the criminal perpetrators in order to circumvent the blockades. In addition, case law in this area has also developed on the basis of rulings of more fundamental character led by Rights Alliance, which is now reflected in the agreement. 

Dynamic Blockings

The possibility of dynamic blocking is one of the significant advances made in the cooperation between rights holders and telecommunications companies. Dynamic blocking entails that not only one website address is subject to blocking, but that the blocking follows when the illegal services switch to new website addresses.

The crucial thing about dynamic blocking is that the court does not have to rule on each of the new addresses if they offer the same illegal content. The task of Rights Alliance is to identify the new addresses and pass them on to ISPs so that they can be blocked.

Case-law under development 

There will also be a need to further review the common case-law in the future as the illegal market continues to develop. Rights Alliance has already experienced developments in illegal live streaming, the use of so-called cyberlockers and the use of alternative DNS services, and therefore it is an important priority for Rights Alliance to ensure that this operational part of enforcement follows developments, so that effective actions can be made against online criminals. 

Today, the most efficient weapon against illegal services that distribute movies, articles, music and thereby monetize traffic and ads., is blockings. Share With Care has published a report on the effect of the blockades. Read the report here.

A similar CoC agreement has been entered into with the United Danish Antenna Associations (FDA) and with the internet provider Fastspeed. Read the revised CoC agreement here.