Petter Reinholdtsen

I want the courts to be involved before the police can hijack a news site DNS domain (#domstolkontroll)
19th May 2016

I just donated to the NUUG defence "fond" to fund the effort in Norway to get the seizure of the news site popcorn-time.no tested in court. I hope everyone that agree with me will do the same.

Would you be worried if you knew the police in your country could hijack DNS domains of news sites covering free software system without talking to a judge first? I am. What if the free software system combined search engine lookups, bittorrent downloads and video playout and was called Popcorn Time? Would that affect your view? It still make me worried.

In March 2016, the Norwegian police seized (as in forced NORID to change the IP address pointed to by it to one controlled by the police) the DNS domain popcorn-time.no, without any supervision from the courts. I did not know about the web site back then, and assumed the courts had been involved, and was very surprised when I discovered that the police had hijacked the DNS domain without asking a judge for permission first. I was even more surprised when I had a look at the web site content on the Internet Archive, and only found news coverage about Popcorn Time, not any material published without the right holders permissions.

The seizure was widely covered in the Norwegian press (see for example Hegnar Online and ITavisen and NRK), at first due to the press release sent out by Økokrim, but then based on protests from the law professor Olav Torvund and lawyer Jon Wessel-Aas. It even got some coverage on TorrentFreak.

I wrote about the case a month ago, when the Norwegian Unix User Group (NUUG), where I am an active member, decided to ask the courts to test this seizure. The request was denied, but NUUG and its co-requestor EFN have not given up, and now they are rallying for support to get the seizure legally challenged. They accept both bank and Bitcoin transfer for those that want to support the request.

If you as me believe news sites about free software should not be censored, even if the free software have both legal and illegal applications, and that DNS hijacking should be tested by the courts, I suggest you show your support by donating to NUUG.

Tags: english, nuug, offentlig innsyn, opphavsrett.

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