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AT&T Stops Pretending It Had Nothing To Do With A Massive Data Breach Impacting
73 Million Customers. Sort Of.
Ohio State University Challenges Trademark App For Vodka Brand ‘VOHIO”



COPYRIGHT NONSENSE IS BACK? SPAIN’S ON AGAIN, OFF AGAIN TELEGRAM BLOCK

Copyright


FROM THE IT'S-LIKE-THE-OLD-DAYS DEPT

Thu, Apr 4th 2024 03:31pm - Mike Masnick

In a bizarre turn of events over the past few weeks, Spain’s high court ordered
a ban on Telegram because some users (gasp!) used the tool to share
copyright-protected content. The judge then suspended his own order a few days
later after receiving a lot of criticism. Then, the judge asked the police to
investigate the potential impact of such a ban on users. Confused? Welcome to
the twisted world of copyright nonsense.

Sometimes it’s odd to me how basically every internet speech story in the first
decade of the 2000s was really a story about copyright. And then, post-SOPA,
there were still some copyright stories, but things focused more on other legal
issues, such as Section 230 or now the DSA. That’s not to say that copyright’s
impact on speech has gone away, because of course it has not. But it’s felt
strange how it seemed to at least fade a bit towards the background.

Last week, though, we had a story that felt very much like a story from a decade
or so ago: Spain’s high court ordered a ban of the entire (extremely popular)
Telegram messaging app after four large Spanish media companies whined about
people sharing infringing materials via the app.

> Judge Santiago Pedraz agreed to temporarily ban the platform after four of the
> country’s main media groups – Mediaset, Atresmedia, Movistar and Egeda
> – complained that the app was disseminating content generated by them and
> protected by copyright without authorisation from the creators.
> 
> Access to the platform – which is the fourth most-used messaging service in
> the country – will be suspended from Monday but it was already being
> suppressed on certain mobile phone providers on Saturday. 

Just a few days later, though, after there was widespread outrage and concern
about banning an entire app and what that meant for free speech, the judge
suspended his own order and asked the police to determine what the impact would
be of the ban:

> Pedraz has now halted the order and called for a police report to investigate
> the impact the temporary ban might have on users. 

The whole thing is bizarre on multiple levels. As I discussed on last week’s
Ctrl-Alt-Speech episode, there was a period of time when Spain seemed like the
one country in the world that was recognizing how copyright law should work in
the internet era, making it clear that the liability should land on actual
infringers, not the tools they used. However, the US entertainment industry
completely lost its collective mind over such a possibility and directly gave
the Spanish government new copyright laws. Then, they got the US government to
declare Spain a pirate nation in the Special 301 report and threaten sanctions.

So, in response, Spain passed a long series of increasingly draconian copyright
laws, even as economists noted the harm they would do. But, the Spanish
government admitted that they felt they needed to pass the laws to avoid more
pressure from the U.S. And the laws have only gotten worse since then.

Blocking an entire app from the entire country because a few users are abusing
it to share infringing content should obviously be seen as overkill. But, again,
Spanish copyright law these days is weighted so heavily in favor of industry, it
doesn’t even feel all that surprising.

Still, it seems bizarre for the Judge to then ask the police to investigate the
potential impact of banning an app used by 8 million Spaniards, or approximately
20% of the country’s population. Isn’t it supposed to be the judge’s job to
figure that out?

Anyway, the case is still going on, so it’s possible that Telegram will get
banned again down the road. But just the fact that anyone is seriously thinking
about banning an entire app because some people misuse it to infringe… just
kinda takes us back to ridiculous copyright takes from the early 2000s.

Filed Under: banning apps, copyright, intermediary liability, spain
Companies: telegram

12 CommentsLeave a Comment

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COMMENTS ON “COPYRIGHT NONSENSE IS BACK? SPAIN’S ON AGAIN, OFF AGAIN TELEGRAM
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12 Comments Collapse all replies

This comment is new since your last visit.

GHB (profile) says:
April 4, 2024 at 3:42 pm


SPAIN’S INTERPRETATION OF SONY BETAMAX

Quite surprising they didn’t learn from U.S case reguarding Universal V Sony

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Threaded [2]
Anonymous Coward says:
April 5, 2024 at 6:10 am


RE:

Except that it’s Spanish politicians who implemented the ban, and we all know
what politicians are like.

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Anonymous Coward says:
April 4, 2024 at 5:52 pm




Alright sure. I vote that every single person who has spoken copyrighted
material without a license be beheaded!

As for people who hold office, are executives ect who have shared, or stolen
copyrighted material. Publicly execute every member of their family.

Seems fair to me.

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Threaded [2]
Anonymous Coward says:
April 4, 2024 at 6:05 pm


RE:

Copyright cartels will make this happen

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andrea iravani says:
April 4, 2024 at 9:40 pm




The rise of fascism is evident on this site.

Democracy Dies In Darkness.

I keep posting extremely important, true information on this site that is
factual that is being cnsored or flagged.

Your families will be the victims of the tyranniical hell that you have
willingly turned America into and you will most likely not be around to protect
them. It is unlikely that you will outlive everyone in your famiky.

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Threaded [2]
Anonymous Coward says:
April 4, 2024 at 10:45 pm


RE:

You’re a parasite in a forum someone else bought and paid for.

If you want to share your brilliant insights with the world, start your own blog
somewhere.

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Threaded [2]
Strawb (profile) says:
April 4, 2024 at 11:51 pm


RE:

> I keep posting extremely important, true information

Nope.

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Threaded [2]
Anonymous Coward says:
April 5, 2024 at 6:12 am


RE:

> I keep posting extremely unimportant, untrue information on this site that is
> not in any way factual that is being flagged for the rambling hate-filled
> rants that it is.

FTFY. YW.

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Strawb (profile) says:
April 4, 2024 at 11:54 pm




Nobody expects the Spanish (Telegram) Prohibition!

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Mattias Estefors says:
April 5, 2024 at 12:04 am




What’s next? Are they gonna ban paper as well?

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Threaded [2]
Anonymous Coward says:
April 5, 2024 at 6:16 am


RE:

Very unlikely. What they’ll do instead is ban Correos to stop doctors people
sending medical information infringements to their patients each other through
the mail.

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Anonymous Coward says:
April 5, 2024 at 1:07 am




Cue to online randos uploading copyrighted materials on purpose as a form of
cyber terrorism against websites.

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