Well finally the rabid attacks on Internet access by the failing entertainment industry have reached South African shores. This morning one of our divisions, Cyber Connect which sells broadband access, was served with a "take down" notice.

If this was a take-down notice for a web site hosted on our servers that a third party had illegally uploaded copy-righted material to, then fair enough. In terms of the South African, Electronic Communication Act (ECT) there is a set out procedure to deal with this, which entails the ISP being informed of the infringement and being given time to remove the offending material.

But this "take down" notice is not for any material hosted on Cyber Connect servers. It is a notice to block all access to two domains not even hosted in South Africa. How these two domain were selected is a mystery and it appears completely arbitrary.

The two domain in question are:

• www. gomusic .ru, and
• www. soundike. com.

What is even more bizarre is that the ECT Act, as far as I understand it, speciifcally protects ISPs from this kind of action under section 77 of the Act.

Mere conduit

77. (1) A service provider is not liable for providing access to or for operating facilities for information systems or transmitting, routing or storage of data messages via an information system under its control, as long as the service provider—

(a) does not initiate the transmission;
(b) does not select the addressee;
(c) performs the functions in an automatic, technical manner without selection of the data; and
(d) does not modify the data contained in the transmission.

(2) The acts of transmission, routing and of provision of access referred to in subsection (1) include the automatic, intermediate and transient storage of the information transmitted in so far as this takes place—

(a) for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission in the information system;
(b) in a manner that makes it ordinarily inaccessible to anyone other than anticipated recipients; and
(c) for a period no longer than is reasonably necessary for the transmission.

(3) Notwithstanding this section, a competent court may order a service provider to terminate or prevent unlawful activity in terms of any other law.

Copies of the relevant pages  of the take down notices can be found below:

• Page 1
• Page 2
• Page 3
• Page 4
• Page 5
• Page 6
• Page 7
• Page 8
• Page 9
• Page 10
• Page 11

Call to Action - Defend Your Rights

As Internet users, SMEs, and citizens in South Africa we are continually bullied and exploited by big business for their own greedy and short-sighted ends. Its time to stand up and join the fight against big business. Lets not just leave it up to the competition comission!