Mediaset España, EGEDA, Atresmedia, and Movistar Plus complained to the authorities about what they believe is Telegram's role in piracy.
Likely shut out 8 million users
Europe is in the wind with extra tough anti-piracy practices, including potential fines of almost NOK 60,000 for IPTV eavesdropping in Italy, and those are fines for the customers, and not even for the providers. But this time they went too far because the three who sued in Spain were successful in blocking Telegram users completely from the service.
The judge concluded by banning everyone because Telegram did not reveal to the court who was behind the pirate channels while the investigation took place. Spanish ISPs therefore had no other option but to block access in the country. Spain has over 47 million inhabitants. Telegram has previously been blocked in countries such as Iran, China, and Pakistan.
With 8 million of them, it was too much because there were such strong reactions from the general public and opposition politicians that the ban was lifted.
This is reported by the Spanish court after the suspension of the blocking
“Judge Santiago Pedraz issued an order this Monday in which he agreed, prior to the temporary suspension of resources related to Telegram, to request a report from the General Information Commissioner's Office regarding the Telegram platform. The magistrate asks for information about its characteristics, as well as the impact of the temporary suspension. The magistrate accepted the order last Friday, including the impact this will have on users.”
In the aforementioned order, the magistrate ordered the telecommunications and internet access operators to temporarily suspend Telegram within the framework of a procedure against the owners of various channels created on the social network, for continued infringement of intellectual property rights.
In his resolution, Pedraz explained that the measure has legal support as considered in Article 13.2 of LECrim: "In the investigation of crimes committed through the Internet, telephone or other information or communication technology, the court may accept, as a first step, e.g. officio or at the request of a party, precautionary measures consisting of temporary removal of illegal content, temporary suspension of services provided by said content, or temporary blocking of both when located in a foreign country.”
Sources: torrentfreak.com