Google Portugal has been ordered by the Lisbon Intellectual Property Court to block access to a website that illegally shares content, such as films and series, but will appeal the decision, a source from the company told Lusa today.
The ruling is the result of a precautionary measure filed by GEDIPE - the Association for the Collective Management of Copyright of Film and Audiovisual Producers against Google Portugal, for allowing the existence of the eztv website and more than 500 associated subdomains, where entertainment and information content is illegally shared.
According to the ruling from that court, dated 9 September, to which the Lusa news agency had access, Google Portugal was ordered to block its customers from connecting to the domain and subdomains of that website, and to pay a fine of one thousand euros for each day "in which the decision is not complied with, after it becomes final, until the effective blocking is ordered".
In a press release released on Tuesday, GEDIPE states that this case dates back to August 2020, when the association informed Google Portugal that it was allowing its users to access that page and subdomains, where it is possible to download "illegally, films and series, but also newspapers and books", without the proper authorization of the authors.
Contacted by the Lusa news agency, a Google spokesperson explained that the company will appeal the decision because it disagrees with "the legal grounds of the case".
At issue is the use of the so-called "domain name system", or DNS in the English acronym (Domain Name System) that registers and relates website names and internet protocols (IP) and that allows each person to use the Internet.
GEDIPE informed Google Portugal in August 2020 that the website was illegal, and the Inspectorate-General for Cultural Activities notified the operators that provide Internet services to block such access, but each user can bypass this block through secondary DNS, accessible through Google's browser.
The court maintains that it has been proven that Google Portugal "acts as an intermediary when it provides an alternative DNS that gives access to the domain https://eztv.yt, which allows the blocking already decreed to be bypassed" and access to other websites associated with that domain.
The company maintains that Google Portugal does not have the capacity to block domains, because the company's public DNS is provided by Google Ireland and, apart from this fact, blocking a DNS does not remove illegal content, it only makes it more difficult to access.
For the Lisbon Intellectual Property Court, the company "did not prove that Google Ireland is the only one that provides this [blocking] service at a European level" and that "it provides an alternative DNS that allows continued access to blocked domains and subdomains", reads the sentence.
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