European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. The belief, rightly in our opinion, was that a notice and take down regime of this kind would help creativity flourish and support free speech while protecting personal privacy. If that principle is swept aside and sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them — every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video — then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear.
Looks like American Judges/Prosecutors aren’t the only idiots in the world. Hopefully no extradition will happen because of this. A large content host such as Google should not be held accountable for improper content hosted on their site. Especially if said content host works with local authorities to help solve crimes in their country.
Watch out Moot, Italy is coming after you and 4chan next…
