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Italian Parliament To Mistakenly Legalize MP3 P2P
plainwhitetoast recommends an article in La Repubblica.it — in Italian, Google translation here. According to Italian lawyer Andrea Monti, an expert on copyright and Internet law, the new Italian copyright law would authorize users to publish and freely share copyrighted music (p2p included). The new law, already approved by both legislative houses, indeed says that one is allowed to publish freely, through the Internet, free of charge, images and music at low resolution or "degraded," for scientific or educational use, and only when such use is not for profit. As Monti says in the interview, those who wrote it didn't realize that the word "degraded" is technical, with a very precise meaning, which includes MP3s, which are compressed with an algorithm that ensures a quality loss. The law will be effective after the appropriate decree of the ministry, and will probably have an impact on pending p2p judicial cases.
"for scientific or educational use, and only when such use is not for profit."
And what is educational use? I think there is somewhere a law what tells it is for education when it is used on schools or any other official educational usage. But not on personal usage, what would still be illegal.
The intentionally misinterpreted version of a definition is the only version that really matters.
TFA suggests that the proponents didn't understand "degraded", but actually the lawmakers got it very right.
... "piracy".
This will keep ordinary people happy in Italy and allow the community sharing that comes naturally, while ensuring that the *ACTUAL* music product of the labels (CDs of uncompressed WAV data) are excluded and therefore protected from sharing, or er
Note that music fans will continue to buy the CDs of the favorite bands regardless of file sharing --- that's what fans do. The sharing is really just free promotion.
Of course, the labels will hate it, but then they hate anything other than open access to peoples' wallets.
Sure, but if the word is being used with a different meaning to how it is commonly used, then the law has to define that meaning. Does this law do that?
Also, I don't speak Italian, but as far as English is concerned, it's not merely a "technical" definition, the common meaning of the word "degraded" applies to the MP3 encoding process. The mistake, if any, isn't that the word was used incorrectly, it's that they didn't define the level of degradation necessary.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
It was indeed...release a 320 bit rate MP3, and it still would technically be considered degraded...not to mention it would be more or less indistinguishable between it a loseless file...unless you are a stuck up audiophile that also believes a multi-thousand dollar cable makes a difference)
Living With a Nerd
The law will be effective after the appropriate decree of the ministry, and will probably have an impact on pending p2p judicial cases.
...Which will shortly be reversed when higher courts at European level find that such a law in Italy is in conflict with the relevant European directives.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but this will last about as long as the shenanigans in France a few years ago.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
A) Italy's government
B) The knowledge of 50+ yr old career politicians w/regards to technology
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
> Not when you can accomplish the same thing without violating copyrights.
Taking into account the new Italian copyright law, you're actually not violating any copyrights anyway.
No, you can't because all the technical reasons for why one is better or both are equal is a smoke screen. The real arguments can be boiled down to this:
Simply put, there is nothing that one side could say that would convince the other they are right because it has nothing to do with the tech and everything to do with the vinyl guys thinking the digitals are deaf, and the digitals thinking the vinyls are loons.