Back in October, Walled Culture wrote about the grandly-named “Piracy Shield”. This is Italy’s new Internet blocking system, which assumes people are guilty until innocent, and gives the copyright industry a disproportionate power to control what is available online, no court orders required. Piracy Shield went live in December, and has just issued its first …

  • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
    47·
    9 months ago

    Its literally a violation of the EU human rights agreement…

    Is it? In Portugal there have been a similar law for years and nobody cares apparently. It isn’t as wide as the Italian one, it just says ISPs are required to block access to websites a govt. entity lists.

    Also no company will comply with that shitshows ridiculous orders.

    Are you sure? Think about it… “All VPN and open DNS services must also comply with blocking orders”. A VPN provider can’t legally sell their services in Italy unless they comply. The best part is: since the govt is blocking websites they can also block providers who doesn’t play according to their rules :)

      • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        I agree with you, but still the portuguese law is equally a violation of the EU human rights agreement.

          • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            9 months ago

            Kind of, the law doesn’t actually say that it only applies to ISPs… technically speaking the Portuguese law could be applicable and enforced with a VPN provider is a court decided to do so. The legislation is kind of written in a vague way that may apply to more than just ISPs. So far they only pressured ISPs to block websites.

              • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
                4·
                9 months ago

                but the processes are so fucking long that getting something blocked takes time, our ISPs fight almost every time (…) The only actual option to get something out of the internet is to find the server and shut it down.

                Not the case at all around here (Portugal), the blocks are quick and ISPs don’t even complain, they simply comply. What the law says is that there’s a govt entity called IGAC that is allowed to ask ISPs to block a website (domain name) as long as the website is flagged as containing / hosting piracy or other form of copyright infringement. The only requirement is that IGAC has to notify the website owner asking to remove the content prior blocking. After 48 if the website is still hosting said content then IGAC will ask the ISPs to block it.

                Since this is all DNS based one can, obviously, set their DNS servers as Google or Cloudflare and bypass the block. Now the problem is that this is all fun and games until someone in the govt decides to go against Cloudflare and other DNS providers, the law would allow them to easily do it the way its written.

                  • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    31·
                    9 months ago

                    I mean if even one of those just shuts down service in or for Portugal the entire Internet is fucked instantly.

                    Yes, but what if the govt just politely tells them “look, we’ve a law about piracy and we think you should block websites at the DNS level like our ISPs are doing”. Do you think Google / Cloudflare will fight it? They already have mechanisms for that in place for parental controls etc. so… the effort of adding a block list for a country shouldn’t be a big deal.

                  • TCB13@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    22·
                    9 months ago

                    That’s some authoritarian shitshow right there. But i think its not a violation of EU laws or agreements.

                    😂 😂 😂 well the irony is that this is the kind of “authoritarian shitshow” we got by electing the left. That and a tax on digital storage (flash drives, disks etc) because they might be used to hold piracy. Even phones are taxed.