A spat over rights to broadcast Turkish football matches has led a local court to issue a blanket ban on the popular blogging platform Blogger, angering Turkish Internet users with what experts said was a disproportionate response.

The court in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır banned the website, a property of Google Inc., in response to a complaint by the satellite television provider Digiturk, which owns the broadcast rights to Turkish Super League games. Matches broadcast on Digiturk’s Lig TV channel had been illegally posted by several Blogger users on their blogs.

“This is a disproportionate response by the court and undoubtedly has a huge impact on all law-abiding citizens,” cyber-rights activist Yaman Akdeniz told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review on Wednesday, adding that millions of Turkish bloggers and blog readers would be affected by the Diyarbakır court decision.

“[I understand] there is a legitimate concern [regarding Digiturk’s commercial rights] but banning all these websites will not solve the issue. The decision opens the way to collateral damage,” said Akdeniz, who is also a law professor at Istanbul Bilgi University.

Source: here

I hadn´t noticed the YouTube ban at all (because I don´t use it) but this one affects me.

I have a blog and I am trying to introduce Turkish culture and literature to foreigners. Now I cant use it. I know there are many useful blogs like mine. It is a shame.

 I agree. That is absolutely shame. Banning bloggers for whatever reason,is breaching the freedom of communication.

Officials with Internet giant Google moved Thursday to restore access in Turkey to its popular web service Blogger, the subject of a blanket ban this week due to copyright violations.

Google authorities said in a press release Thursday that they are concerned about content posted via Blogger that breaches the copyrights of other entities and will take immediate action upon legal notification of such cases.

The release followed a court decision in Turkey to ban the blogging service because it had been used to illegally broadcast online football matches whose exclusive rights were bought by Digiturk, Turkey’s largest satellite television provider.

“We are seriously concerned by the allegations on violated copyrights and we rapidly respond by removing content infringing copyrights upon a related legal notification,” the release read.

The statement also said copyright owners could easily apply on Google’s website to report a violation of their rights, and that the monitoring process functions efficiently.

“Instead of depriving all content owners from accessing Blogger services, we encourage them to make use of such a process. In this way, Blogger users from Turkey will be able to benefit from the services while we try to deal with the complaint,” the statement read.

Source: here