Piracy Laws Temporarily Blocked Google Drive in Italy

Italy's Piracy Shield law, designed to combat online piracy, temporarily blocked access to Google Drive. The issue was resolved after a few hours, but it revealed how poor piracy legislation can harm legitimate internet use.

The law, which allows the country's telecom regulator AGCOM designate certain IP addresses as piracy and require internet providers and VPNs to block access to them, has faced criticism for its broad approach and potential for collateral damage. That argument has been further highlighted because it did exactly what the argument stated by accidentally taking down Google Drive. YouTube, Google, and Google Photos seem to have been somewhat affected as well, but not with full bans like Drive.

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Last weekend, Google Drive was mistakenly blocked in Italy for six hours and still took time to completely come back online. The incident occurred after AGCOM designated Google Drive as a piracy service, despite its obvious non-connection to illegal streaming. The way it operates is arguably the reason this happens. Essentially, rights holders can file complaints with lists of domains they want blocked, giving ISPs only 30 minutes to comply. Unfortunately, 30 minutes is not a lot of time, especially considering how many domains are probably listed, so that helps mistakes happen. The Piracy Shield implemented the blocking soon after, taking down Google Drive for the entire country.

Italy's new Piracy Shield was originally met with concerns about its potential to block legitimate websites. The law's structure makes it difficult to appeal wrongly blocked sites, prioritizing blocking and addressing consequences later, contributing to this issue. This month, The situation worsened when Italy amended the regulations to increase criminal sanctions for failing to block designated IP addresses and expanding the list of VPNs and DNS services covered. ISPs must proactively alert AGCOM of suspected piracy, facing potential prison sentences for inaction. However, there is a list of sites that are deemed safe and will not be blocked, which should have helped. Unfortunately, Google Drive was not included in the "allowlist" designed to protect major trusted sites.

This is helping critics of the law who highlighted the potential for overblocking under Italy's Piracy Shield. What's interesting is how long it took Google Drive to come back, because ISPs face costly sanctions for unblocking designated domains. This is Google, so it has a lot of attention and likely played a part in bringing Drive back online, but smaller sites could potentially have a lot more trouble bringing themselves back over any false reports against them.

Source: Wired Italy Translated by Techdirt