After more than four years of work, the Copyright Clearing House for the Internet (Clearingstelle Urheberrecht im Internet, CUII), established in 2021, has declared itself "successful in the fight against criminal business models on the Internet." At the same time, it is responding to one of the main points of criticism, namely that a private body imposes restrictions on websites that are sensitive in terms of fundamental rights, largely unchecked and behind closed doors. The procedure is now to be further developed so that courts review every restriction, the organization announced on Wednesday. Anzeige This will "establish an effective and legally secure procedure," according to the clearing house, whose members include major providers such as Telekom, Vodafone, Telefónica, and 1&1. On the rights holders' side, the German Publishers and Booksellers Association, the Federal Association of the Music Industry, the Games Industry Association, the Motion Picture Association (MPA), Sky, and Gema are among those represented. "Under current law, websites with an illegal business model can be blocked by access providers," explained the chairman of the CUII steering committee, Berlin lawyer Jan Bernd Nordemann. For the association, it is "a top priority that only justified blocks are implemented. The new court system guarantees this "also in the future." Hundreds of domains already more difficult to access According to the association, "25 websites with many hundreds of domains" have been blocked under the previous system. Their operators had deliberately infringed copyright. They made protected content from the fields of film, music, sports, games, books, and magazines accessible "intentionally and without permission." As a rule, it is not possible to take direct action against the creators "because they hide behind the anonymity of the internet." Streaming portals for films and series such as kinox.to, streamkiste.tv, filmfans.org, and serienfans.org have already been blacklisted, although the list is not officially published. Sites for music and game downloads are also included. The blocking of the shadow library Sci-Hub is considered particularly critical. The Society for Civil Rights (GFF) criticizes that numerous legal open access publications are also collected there. The block thus has "far-reaching consequences for freedom of science and information." Activists campaigning against online censorship have made the affected domains public on the website cuiiliste.de. They criticized that 41 domains were wrongfully blocked last year. The CUII refers to a list of "blocking recommendations." However, the access providers involved usually implement these recommendations. The Berlin cable network operator Tele Columbus, which offers its services under the umbrella brand Pÿur, emphasizes, however, that "we only implement network blocks on official orders." Here, too, it is necessary to examine the legal validity of the relevant orders and whether the applicants were entitled to them. Anzeige Federal Network Agency withdraws Until now, the Federal Network Agency has been involved in the blocking recommendations. However, it only checked the domains to ensure that the DNS blocks recommended by the CUII were compatible with net neutrality. There was therefore no official decision on the illegality of an offer. This also led to antitrust concerns that companies were forming alliances against direct competitors and justifying this with their alleged illegality, without this assessment having been made by a court or an authority. The revised approach will "lead to a reduction in personnel" at the regulator "considering the numerous new digital tasks at the Federal Network Agency", the CUII explained. For this reason, the authority had suggested involving the judiciary. The association itself also expects the court proceedings to speed up the process, as the agreements with the regulator had taken quite a long time. Cartel Office informed The CUII also announced that the DNS blocks administered by the committee and "reviewed by the Federal Network Agency" had reduced visits to the blocked sites by up to 80 percent. When web users attempted to access one of the blocked domains, they were redirected to special information pages explaining the reasons for the block and its origin. The corresponding "CUII landing page" alone had around 50 million visitors in 2024. Web blocking has been hotly contested in Germany since a Düsseldorf district president pushed ahead with relevant orders in 2002. DNS blocks are relatively easy to circumvent. According to its own statements, the CUII has also presented the new method to the Federal Cartel Office. In the future, legal proceedings will always be brought against a CUII provider. If the court orders the block, all affiliated access providers will set up a corresponding block. (vbr) Don't miss any news – follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn or Mastodon. This article was originally published in German. It was translated with technical assistance and editorially reviewed before publication.