[0x_rs]

Seems obvious at this point there needs to be EU-level regulations against individual countries, such as Spain and Italy, implementing these absurd restrictions. It would at least make lobbying from those sports companies more difficult. These same companies have been pushing for banning VPNs -- consumer VPNs -- as they easily circumvent half the internet going dark because of some dumb sports event, and they're going to be targeted next when everyone's using them. It doesn't help "piracy" always ends up being an excellent excuse to undermine everyone's privacy.

[Squarex]

As a europe federalist, I would think it is more likely EU would implement these restrictions itself instead of step against Spain.

[embedding-shape]

In theory, we should already be protected against this via the various "Net neutrality" directives, but as the US currently is showing us, laws and regulations are only worth as much as you're willing to enforce them ultimately. But things like these are supposed to be worth at least something:

> Regulation 2015/2120 also states that access providers “shall treat all traffic equally, when providing internet access services, without discrimination, restriction or interference, and irrespective of the sender and receiver, the content accessed or distributed, the applications or services used or provided, or the terminal equipment used,” although they are permitted to apply “reasonable traffic management measures.” In any case, those measures must be “transparent, non-discriminatory and proportionate, and shall not be based on commercial considerations but on objectively different technical quality of service requirements of specific categories of traffic” (Article 3.3) - https://www.cuatrecasas.com/en/global/intellectual-property/...

Remains to be seen if something/someone will put a stop to La Liga's shenanigans, judges have seem unwilling so far, and not a big enough problem for the average person to really care about it (yet?).

[martinald]

The regulation has an opt out for court orders though, which these are.

[petcat]

> there need to be EU-level regulations against individual countries, such as Spain and Italy, implementing these absurd restrictions

Why should other EU members care what websites Spain allows their citizens to access? Does the "EU" even have authority for such a thing?

[0x_rs]

There's a "European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles", signed by the member states, and I believe the right to access internet freely, without companies being permitted to mandate entire IP addresses blocks being forbidden from routing and within 30 minutes from the request surely would fit within that one, or others, in some way or another. No company should hold that power and it's a serious precedent others states in the union would want to leverage for their own reasons too. Reading this recent TorrentFreak article, the regulations should probably align with the following thinktank's analysis, at the very least:

>The report makes 12 formal recommendations. The most significant is that IP-based blocking should be avoided altogether, due to its inherent tendency to block large numbers of legitimate service sites. DNS-level or URL-level blocking should be used instead.

https://torrentfreak.com/eu-pirate-site-blocking-is-broken-r...

[em-bee]

if it interferes with my ability to sell products and services in spain because my website gets blocked as a side-effect, then yes, the EU should care.

for example geo-blocking within the EU is also illegal. if you offer a service or product in any EU country, then anyone in the EU must be allowed to buy it.

among other things this also means that if there is any country in the EU where these sports broadcasts are accessible legally, then spain would not be allowed to block them either.

[lxgr]

> if it interferes with my ability to sell products and services in spain because my website gets blocked as a side-effect, then yes, the EU should care.

As long as you’re not disadvantaged compared to a Spanish seller of goods or services or Spain’s law is specifically violating an EU one, I don’t think so.

> for example geo-blocking within the EU is also illegal. if you offer a service or product in any EU country, then anyone in the EU must be allowed to buy it.

Definitely not. You’re not automatically obliged to sell to other EU countries just because you’re selling in one. There are some categories where you have to, but that explicitly excludes video streaming.

There is another regulation for subscribers temporarily traveling to a different EU country not losing access to a service they subscribed to in their home country, but that’s also something else.

[em-bee]

You’re not automatically obliged to sell to other EU countries just because you’re selling in one.

according to my understanding yes, you are:

https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/geoblockin...

i don't see mention of any exception for streaming there either. (maybe one exists, if you have a reference, i'd love to take a look)

[lxgr]

They call it "audio-visual". From the page you linked:

> [...] services in sectors currently fully excluded such as transport and audio-visual

[em-bee]

good catch, thank you.

if you look at the actual report summary however it shows that they want to change that:

https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/news/commission-pub...

so even if not a reality in all sectors, removing geoblocking is in the interest of the EU.

going back to the original question:

Why should other EU members care what websites Spain allows their citizens to access? Does the "EU" even have authority for such a thing?

they do care, and they should, and yes, they have the authority.

personally, when i read the report, seeing how young people are more interested in viewing content from other countries, what first came to my mind is the increased integration of EU countries and cultures that comes from that. that's the why.

[AnthonyMouse]

> As long as you’re not disadvantaged compared to a Spanish seller of goods or services or Spain’s law is specifically violating an EU one, I don’t think so.

Aren't you being disadvantaged though? A customer in Spain can buy from an EU internet retailer (let's say ~10% of those retailers are in Spain using the population ratio of Spain to the EU), or from a brick and mortar retailer in their location 100% of which are in Spain.

They're blocking the thing where ~90% of the retailers are outside of Spain but not the thing where all of them are in Spain, is that not a disadvantage?

[buzer]

Surely EU members should care if Spain blocks the access to government services offered by EU members. In Finland various government services (like Police's website) do use Cloudflare.

And Spain is not blocking access to Spain's citizens, it's blocking access people in Spain. These could be citizens of other EU members who need to access their government's website for reason or another (e.g. renewing passport) while they visit Spain or reside in Spain.

[adalacelove]

Yes, it has the authority. There are plenty of EU regulations that states must obey, from fundamental rights to taxation.

[Pay08]

The question is about the authority to pass laws that only some countries need to obey. To my knowledge, the EU does not have the authority to do that.

[nslsm]

They don't have to do anything like that. Just create a law that says no country in the EU is allowed to block sites.

[jltsiren]

The EU doesn't work like that. It's a union of sovereign states, not a central government.

Banning the member states from legislating something would require changes to the Treaties of the European Union. And that in turn would require unanimous consent from the member states.

The EU could legislate the matter on its own, which would override national laws. But it's not in the habit of doing narrow single-purpose laws, because that's not in the culture of the people who run the union. Instead, there would probably be a comprehensive law on internet blocking and censorship, which would be a very bad idea.

[scotty79]

Basically EU should step in whenever country level government doesn't do a good enough job for its citizens.

It's not strong enough to do that yet but a lot of people with cheap governments wish it was.

[Pay08]

That would be an absolute disaster and basically destroy European democracy.

[AnthonyMouse]

The way this works best is that you have a federal system that sets out what the member states can't do (e.g. block internet, censor speech, ex post facto laws, trade barriers) and then the central government exists only to enforce those constraints on the member states, who choose whether and how to do any of the things they are allowed to do.

[jimbokun]

So Spanish people are too stupid to vote for their own policy preferences?

How do you know the EU is guaranteed to do a better job than national governments representing the desires of that nation’s citizens?

[scotty79]

Ask Hungarians at any point of the last 16 years. The problem is that 30% vote in a conman. 29% of people try to prevent that. Then 100% of people suffer for years.

It happened in Poland and in Hungary.

And even if that scenario doesn't play out exactly like that it always works this way to some degree.

People need enlightened remote central power to protect them from local petty tyrants.

It's the same thing as HOAs. If there aren't enough laws (with enforcement) in place, people tend to be exploited by "voluntarily" chosen local tyrants. At the level of home owners associacion, or at the level of national government.

[smsm42]

If Spaniards think their goverment is doing a bad job, why don't they vote them out? They are still a democracy, aren't they?

[EmuAGR]

The opposition is also pleasing to LALIGA, that wouldn't change anything. And LALIGA managed to secure a legal ruling by a corrupt judge.

[tpm]

It doesn't work like that. The EU is established by the states and only has the authority to do what is delegated by the member states to the EU.

[cedws]

The EU is in favour of this kind of rubbish, as is the UK. We need to kick these idiots out of power.

[quantummagic]

And replace them with other idiots, who also support this rubbish? There isn't anyone who has sanity and decency, as their platform.

[cedws]

It seems the fundamental problem with democracy is that all the wrong people seek power, and the most qualified shy away from it.

[Rury]

Sort of, but not really. It's more that people get complacent/ignorant when it comes to matters of power (they shy away), so by choosing to let go (a selfish endeavor) - a power vacuum is created, which others seize the opportunity for their own interest. In other words, democracy is not self-sustaining, it requires constant participation by everyone in order to sustain. As soon as people opt out, you have a minority determining things for everyone, and so you're no longer truly a democracy.

[Gud]

Representative democracy.

Other forms exist. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

https://www.aboutswitzerland.eda.admin.ch/en/political-syste...

[buzer]

> Seems obvious at this point there needs to be EU-level regulations against individual countries, such as Spain and Italy, implementing these absurd restrictions.

I don't think there is EU-level "regulation" in this specific thing. However there is something somewhat better: European Convention on Human Rights. It's just that challenging these kind of bans via that route is very slow (similar how slow it is to challenge the laws which go against the Constitution in the US via Supreme Court).

[ctolsen]

Yeah, if this is stopped, it'll be because of the European Charter of Fundamental Rights or the ECHR.

The Charter and the European Court of Justice is why we don't have blanket data retention in the EU but it took twelve years to strike down the Data Retention Directive (though it was killed off much faster in some national courts).

[conradfr]

The EU is more likely to enact more censorship than other way.

[vaylian]

This. The chat control 2.0 law includes blocking orders. And Ursula von der Leyen tried to introduce internet censorship when she was still in German politics.

[sunaookami]

Tried? She already did EU-wide with the RT ban. Doesn't matter what your opinion on russian state media is, the censorship regime is now in place and it's easy to expand. (Not to mention the EU describes itself as democratic yet has the need to censor)

[isodev]

You’re forgetting the EU is composed of people elected and appointed by member countries. If you don’t like certain policies - contact your MEPs and express your views. Also go vote during your next election. It’s called a democracy for a reason.

[bluecalm]

You don't have "your MEP" in most EU countries. They don't care about you because their loyalty is to the party, not the voter. They need to be with good standing with the party to even get on the list.

There are so many indirections in that "democracy" that it's no longer a democracy at all. You don't get to vote on issues, you don't get to vote on people (they are just a proxy for a party). You just get to vote on 2-3 reasonable parties (if even that). There is nothing you can do in that system about a specific issue.

[storus]

That's oversimplification. EU is composed of people vetted by lobbyist/old money groups, elected and approved by member countries. Their primary allegiance is not to the voter.

[vaylian]

I'm not forgetting that.

> and appointed by member countries [..] Also go vote during your next election

That's an important detail. I had no chance to vote against Zensursula.

[sunaookami]

You can't vote for the EU commission and the parliament has no power.

[moffkalast]

Germans don't call her Cenzursula for nothing.

[isodev]

I would say the root problem is not someone seeking to prevent piracy but rather the fact that so many services are clustered behind the same proxy / CDN service (e.g. Cloudflare).

That in my view is what needs to be regulated and Cloudflare designated as a “gatekeeper” with all the responsibilities to go with that.

La Liga would never be able to secure blanket bans if people and services were more decentralised

[sva_]

I disagree, I think the bigger issue is blanket banning IPs because they can't decrypt the traffic.

This is the kind of manufacturing consent that would make some people be in favor of the government MITMing crypto so that they can verify that I'm not doing something naughty.

[embedding-shape]

Both are problems. In Spain we have laws that are supposed to give us reasonable access to internet websites, and no one should be able to block large swaths of the internet in order to block access to few websites, supposedly at least. Clearly this been compromised, and the judges themselves seems to go against the law, but I'm hopeful it'd be restored one day.

> La Liga would never be able to secure blanket bans if people and services were more decentralised

They technically haven't either. According to "ban-supporters", La Liga first reached out to Cloudflare asking them to shut down the pirate stream websites using Cloudflare. After Cloudflare rejected that, La Liga went to judges that approved forcing ISPs to ban specific IPs (related to the services) which happened to be Cloudflare IPs that other services uses too.

End result is the same, it fucking sucks sometimes when shit unexplicitly breaks before you remember there is a football game, but at least I think that's a bit more accurate to what's practically happening :)