How The RIAA Helped Pave The Way For Spain To Undermine Democracy
from the seizing-domains dept
This might seem like a harsh title, but let's go back a bit into history. In 2010, at the direct urging of the RIAA, the US government, in the form of ICE, suddenly decided that it could seize domains right out from under websites with zero due process. Specifically, the RIAA gave ICE a list of websites that it insisted were engaging in piracy. It later turned out that this list was completely bogus -- and the seized domains included some music blogs and a search engine -- and when ICE asked the RIAA to provide the evidence (incredibly, many months after seizing the domains...), it turns out that they had none. Even with all of this, ICE kept one blog's domain for over a year, while denying that site's lawyer even the chance to talk to the judge overseeing the case -- and (even more incredibly) kept two other sites for five whole years.
The RIAA, who was directly quoted in the affidavit used to seize these domains (including falsely claiming that a non-RIAA song, that was personally given to the site by the independent artist in question, was an RIAA song and infringing) later tried to downplay its role in all of this, while still insisting that seizing entire domains based on flimsy claims and zero evidence was a perfectly reasonable strategy.
Fast forward to the present. Over in Spain there's a big political fight over Catalonia independence, with an upcoming referendum that the Spanish government has declared illegal. Things got very messy with Spanish law enforcement raiding government buildings, offices and homes. There are all sorts of human rights issues being raised here, let alone questions of democracy. However, those aren't directly the kinds of things we cover here. What did catch our attention, however, is that one of the raids was on the operators of the .cat domain, puntCAT, in order to seize the websites promoting the upcoming referendum and to arrest the company's head of IT for sedition (yes, sedition).
As EFF's Jeremy Malcolm explains, this should raise all sorts of alarms and concerns:
We have deep concerns about the use of the domain name system to censor content in general, even when such seizures are authorized by a court, as happened here. And there are two particular factors that compound those concerns in this case. First, the content in question here is essentially political speech, which the European Court of Human Rights has ruled as deserving of a higher level of protection than some other forms of speech. Even though the speech concerns a referendum that has been ruled illegal, the speech does not in itself pose any imminent threat to life or limb.
The second factor that especially concerns us here is that the seizure took place with only 10 days remaining until the scheduled referendum, making it unlikely that the legality of the domains' seizures could be judicially reviewed before the referendum is scheduled to take place. The fact that such mechanisms of legal review would not be timely accessible to the Catalan independence movement, and that the censorship of speech would therefore be de facto unreviewable, should have been another reason for the Spanish authorities to exercise restraint in this case.
Whether it's allegations of sedition or any other form of unlawful or controversial speech, domain name intermediaries should not be held responsible for the content of websites that utilize their domains. If such content is unlawful, a court order directed to the publisher or host of that content is the appropriate way for authorities to deal with that illegality, rather than the blanket removal of entire domains from the Internet. The seizure of .cat domains is a worrying signal that the Spanish government places its own interests in quelling the Catalonian independence movement above the human rights of its citizens to access a free and open Internet, and we join ordinary Catalonians in condemning it.
I agree entirely with Malcolm's assessment, but should note that the US government (even if it wanted to, which it probably does not...) has no moral high ground here, seeing as it's been seizing domains for the better part of a decade, with some of those earliest seizures coming on behalf of the RIAA (over trumped up charges). As Malcolm says, this doesn't mean that all illegal content must remain online, but seizing domains is a brute force intimidation and censorship tool for governments. The RIAA should be ashamed that it helped "pioneer" this sort of government censorship.
![Hide This Hide this](https://ii.techdirt.com/s/t/i/topclose.png)
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: .cat, catalonia, censorship, domain seizures, domains, referendum, seizures, spain
Companies: riaa
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
"Actually, the whole MAFIAA should be ashamed of existing."
You say as they laugh all the way to bank with YOUR money that you willingly give them.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
If anything, most of the commenters on this site would prefer the exact opposite. Only headcases like MyNameHere want our corporate media overlords to basically become a fourth branch of the government.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
"The RIAA should be ashamed"
Those are words that don't go together well.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
From mangled allusions in title to linkage so tenuous it's not even vapor...
HOOTS all the way through!
"pave the way" to "undermine", eh? You should really THINK on what physical relations you invoke with any cliche.
Rest is Masnick at his irrational worst: gloss over contemporary topic then write the lead-in of anti-RIAA blathering and vaguely merge. Voila! RIAA due blame for every trouble!
I'm only surprised that you didn't blame Russia. May have just spoilered what you're working on, though.
And RIAA isn't even mentioned in your first link! -- Search there for "RIAA" found only THIS very piece! "If you liked this post, you may also be interested in... * How The RIAA Helped Pave The Way For Spain To Undermine Democracy"
Didn't think I'd missed that, though 7 years ago, and was right. So I'm not bothering with the later links, as those too are likely related only by the text that Masnick ground out for the purpose.
5th attempt. Seems back to the prior blockage.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: From mangled allusions in title to linkage so tenuous it's not even vapor...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
Oh yeah, everything is my fault and I should be ashamed.
Do you get tired of spewing the same old crap?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
"imminent threat to life or limb"
Unlike copyright infringement.
/s
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: From mangled allusions in title to linkage so tenuous it's not even vapor...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: From mangled allusions in title to linkage so tenuous it's not even vapor...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Seriously, I imagine if I was on the fence this kind of brutality and political bullying would just push me into the secede camp, and to not even care about the economic/etc. implications of it.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re:
You are making it too easy for them, I am just here to tell you... yes, it is your fault, so shut up and enjoy the ride you paid for.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
…hey, where I score my cocaine is my business.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Illegal content
Did someone replace the regular TechDirt editors with someone from the RIAA?
There's no such thing as illegal (or unlawful) content. Content does not violate a civil or criminal statute. Only people can do that and incur civil or criminal penalties.
Please do all your readers a favor and never ever say "illegal content" again as if it's a thing.
It's not.
E
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Tenuous link is tenuous.
The RIAA may have done this first, but, not only was that in a different legal environment, without specific causal evidence you can't rule out parallel invention.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Tenuous link is tenuous.
I invented email!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
According to out_of_the_blue and MyNameHere, we're all pirates. That means that we don't give them our money.
If you're going to troll at least have some common sense to keep up with what the troll party line is.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Tenuous link is tenuous.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Tenuous link is tenuous.
Yeah, by all accounts Mr. Email independently created his EMAIL program without any knowledge of prior work. I really don't have any issue with that particular claim. Other claims, such as EMAIL being the first "true" email program, based on ever-increasingly narrow definitions of email, which eventually reduce to "It's not email because I didn't invent it. Therefore I'm the only real inventor of email.", or claiming that his particular program was instrumental in email as it exists today (in other words, paved the way for modern email), despite lacking any supporting causal evidence, those I have serious problems with.
His general behavior also disgusts me, but that really doesn't impact the validity (or lack thereof) of his claims.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Tenuous link is tenuous.
WRONG ARTICLE.
E
[ link to this | view in thread ]
You are buying too much one side of the issue
No Web page promoting the referendum has been seized without judicial review.
The webs were seized by judicial order and the procedure has nothing to do with the copyright procedure and they has been seized for giving infrastructure support to an illegal referendum not for simply promoting it. They were been used to distribute the illegally obtained cense (the referendum promoters has no legal right to access the private information needed to build it) for the illegal referendum.
The legal system is different if you are taken for questioning in front of a judge (the equivalent for the American system would be a great jury I think) as a witness you don't have right to a lawyer and lying is a felony but you can't.
If you are taken for questioned as a accused (potential) you have right to legal representation and lying only affect your credibility if catch
So as a protection a person must be taken for questioning as a (potential) accused for anything that the judge think that exist the POSSIBILITY that the person would be finally accuse.
So at the end the complaint is that a judge got a bit heavy handed while blocking illegal activity in the web, and that EFF do not understand the Spanish legal system
And the raiding government buildings, offices and homes is about embezzlement for use of government money for something that has already been declared is against the Spanish constitution.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
That same tactic here
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Tenuous link is tenuous.
I'm not the one who brought it up, and this article is also making claims about causal relationships without any supporting evidence.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: From mangled allusions in title to linkage so tenuous it's not even vapor...
I'm not surprised you brought up Russia as a victim in a non-Russian article.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: You are buying too much one side of the issue
I'm not a lawyer, just aware of EU human rights related laws, as my govt (UK) likes to play fast and loose with them too.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
If the Spanish government is worried that the Catalans might break away (I always thought the Basques would go first), why not make it more desirable to be part of Spain? Rough wooing has never worked in terms of winning people over.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Illegal content
The fact that everybody else is doing it makes it all the more imperative that we rock the boat as hard as we can and put the opposition on the back foot.
In any case I'll have to agree to disagree with you on the illegality of content; while copyrighted content can be described as "unauthorised" when it's being shared on torrent sites, etc., illegal content is that which actually breaks the law in and of itself, e.g. child porn. Such things actually do violate criminal statutes.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Illegal content
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re: Illegal content
Being in possession of the data or transferring that data within countries that outlaw those _actions_ of _people_ is unlawful _behavior_ on the part of the _people_. The data are innocent.
And with that I'll say no more ;)
Good morning :)
E
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]