EspañolThe fact that the internet as we know it is in danger is no longer big news. The network is constantly under attack from a wide range of forces from around the world. The attack on its decentralized structure and its system of self-governance is primarily a consequence of governments’ perceived loss of control, and the freedom-friendly atmosphere that permeates the network.

Anonymity, ease of information sharing, and freedom of expression have always been viewed with suspicion from the spheres of political power. The recent and greatly publicized cases of mass data collection of online communications carried out by powerful intelligence agencies have exposed this clear global trend.

But governments are not the only ones who feel threatened by the disruptive power of the internet. Since the popularity of file sharing exploded in 1999, thanks to companies like Napster, the associations representing major record companies and the film industry around the world launched a full-blown jihad against file-sharing systems.

The new digital paradigm jeopardized their business models, based as they are on the privileges that copyright laws grant them. In the new era, the cost of copying and sharing information nearly disappeared overnight, and industry leaders simply had not thought to adapt to the new circumstances. Instead, candle makers set out to try and ban electricity.

As a result of the aggressive strategy undertaken by these associations, Argentina became on Tuesday the first Latin-American country to block access to The Pirate Bay (TPB), the most famous torrent directory on the internet. The move was requested by the Argentina Chamber of Phonographic Producers (CAPIF), the Argentina Society of Authors and Composers (SADAIC), and several record companies. The order was issued in March, but it was made public on July 1 when the National Communications Commission ordered internet service providers to block a range of internet protocol (IP) addresses associated with TPB:

In the 37-page decision, Judge Gastón Polo Olivera found The Pirate Bay’s activity to be indefensible from the position of a right to freedom of expression.

Recognizing the protection of the right to freedom of expression in the context of P2P file-sharing, with its exchange of chunks and metadata among users and the tracker’s assistance for copyright violation, would denigrate one of the greatest achievements of free man elevated to status of citizen since 1789.

A few paragraphs earlier, Olivera Polo mentions a study by David Price, a British analyst, which classifies the type of information distributed via TPB:

Within six of the major content groups … the expert analyzed [a] sampling and determined whether the content was commercially available in the market: 75.1 percent of music content was commercially available, as well as 92.1 percent of cinematic content, 92.9 percent of television content, and 79.6 percent of books.

In other words, regardless of whether or not “copyright” is legitimate from the perspective of fundamental individual rights, the judge recognized that the website does distribute some material that does not violate copyright laws. However, he insists on ordering a block on the entire website, a clear act of censorship.

Therein lies the potentially most dangerous consequence of this judicial decision. The sort of requests issued to the court by CAPIF and SADAIC do not allow for any interaction with the accused party whatsoever. The court blocked access to The Pirate Bay’s website without ever giving them a chance to defend their case. Therefore, anyone in the future who feels aggrieved by information on the internet, even if generated by third parties, would likely succeed in requesting a judge block the source of that information.

The case, however, was not a total victory for the plaintiffs. Two of their questions were rejected by the judge. CAPIF claimed it should have the legal authority to “‘every now and then’ determine which DNS or IP addresses from The Pirate Bay’s website should be blocked, and guide such procedures.” Judge Polo Olivera made clear that this was simply a request for censorship, and that he was the only one with the legal authority to censor. “It is an extremely vague proposal, and would entitle the entity to carry out censorship acts that it cannot and should not have the power to exercise,” he wrote. Further, in another rejected request, the representatives of the record companies sought to block the results of search engines that link to TPB.

The verdict is far from a defeat for The Pirate Bay. The Streisand effect will generate huge volumes of traffic for them. Having become quite accustomed to legal entities attempting to block their site, they have built a network of proxies that mirror their content and allow users to “route around” court orders. Thanks to this network, Argentineans can still download their fill of content from the most popular torrent site in the world. Overall, however, the landscape of internet freedom continues to look bleak.