The Clearingstelle Urheberrecht im Internet (CUII) is a private group formed by ISPs and copyright holders. They decided what websites to block, and ISPs followed, without any court ruling. No judge was involved, no legal process.

The members: The four largest ISPs in Germany and a bunch of copyright holders (the Motion Picture Association, Sky, …). If they decided that a site should be blocked, the ISPs just blocked the domains from being resolved. This ran completely outside the courts, a private system made by corporations for censorship. Blocked sites included streaming services, but also sites like Sci-Hub or game piracy sites.

In a previous blog post, I went into detail on how we trolled them:

• We leaked their secret blocklists (the list of domains was kept secret!)
• We exposed dozens of wrongful and outdated blocks.
• We made them unblock a lot of domains, including some that were blocked for years.
• … and so much more. We just made a lot of bad press for them.

The CUII now only coordinates blocks between ISPs after a court order. That’s it. No more secret votes. No more corporate censorship. The new version of their website says: “The CUII coordinates the conduct of judicial blocking proceedings and the implementation of judicial blocking orders.”

…