Spain seeks fast track for pirate site shutdowns
Found on The Register on Friday, 08 January 2010
Spain has proposed a new anti-piracy law that would let intellectual property police play a speedier game of whack-a-mole with websites serving illegal downloads of music and films.
Under a fast-track judicial process the website's owner would be summoned at the time of the initial complaint and given four days to appeal.
Spain's original version of the plan, unveiled to widespread criticism in November, would have allowed the IP commission to shutter websites without any judicial authorization.
Website owners who are not living in Spain will simply show them a middle finger (if they react at all); blocking hostnames or IP addresses requires the support of ISP's and a tight censorship law plus maintained blacklists (which will create lots of colateral damage).