14 DAY TRIAL // MAPiNET, working on a somewhat illegal agreement with local Portuguese ISPs has blocked a music news blog on the grounds of copyright infringement for embedding YouTube videos and SoundCloud songs without a license, TorrentFreak reports.
MAPiNET is a local Portuguese anti-piracy outfit that has entered into an agreement with the Portuguese Ministry of Culture, and the Association of Telecommunication Operators, and are now banning websites with the collaboration local ISPs.
This agreement allows MAPiNET to propose bans for websites that the group considers are breaking the law. While blatant pirate websites are on the list, other sites that should not be in there are also actively banned based on a subjective reason.
One of those websites is Ultimate Music, a music news site operated by Josep Vinaixa. Mr. Vinaixa uses the site to publish news about new albums and single releases, and where possible, he also embeds a YouTube video or SoundCloud track.
He says that most of the times, music companies contact him directly and provide him details of upcoming releases, along with links to the necessary material, like official YouTube music channels, and video URLs.
But according to MAPiNET, embedding YouTube videos or SoundCloud files on his site is illegal in Portugal unless Mr. Vinaixa has obtained a license from the Portuguese Cultural inspection entity IGAC.
MAPiNET thinks embedding YouTube videos is copyright infringement
"According to the information we have gathered from the Portuguese Music Licensing Company (PassMusica) and all music related Collective Management Entities, you have not submitted any licensing request for your site to operate in the Portuguese Territory," MAPiNET explained in an email to Mr. Vinaixa seen by TorrentFreak.
This email seems to be in stark contradiction with a 2014 EU Court of Justice ruling that states that content that's freely available and not protected by something like a paywall or other subscription model can be embedded online without breaking EU copyright laws.
Mr. Vinaixa's site has been blocked just before Christmas 2015, and continues to be blocked today.
While each EU country can set up rules based on which news media agencies need to obtain licenses for their content in order to operate inside a specific country's borders, it is far more worrisome that Portugal allowed an anti-piracy group to issue country-wide bans with no judicial oversight.