European ISPs Want Rightsholders Held Accountable for Overblocking Damage(torrentfreak.com)
407 points by Brajeshwar 1 day ago | 123 comments
tl;dr: EuroISPA, representing 3,300+ European ISPs, is petitioning the EU Commission to hold rightsholders financially liable for collateral damage from overblocking, citing incidents like Italy's Piracy Shield taking down 7,700 domains and Spain's LaLiga blocks knocking out banking apps and developer tools. The group argues existing IPRED legislation already supports such accountability and warns against expanding blocking obligations to DNS resolvers and VPN providers, noting Cisco pulled OpenDNS from France and Belgium after blocking orders. They also oppose rapid-blocking mandates like Italy's 30-minute requirement, which disproportionately burden smaller providers.
HN Discussion:
  • Censorship is fundamentally wrong; takedowns should require court judgments for specific material
  • ~ISPs should have refused to implement blocking from the start rather than complying
  • Rightsholders abuse the system and need chilling effects, though skepticism remains about enforcement
  • The real cost of overblocking is massive wasted citizen time, not just ISP burden
  • LaLiga and Spain's blocking situation is absurd and disrupts legitimate services like Cloudflare and banking