Slashdot Mirror
Italy Floats Official Permission Requirement for Web Video Uploads
An anonymous reader writes with some bad news from Italy, noting that new rules proposed there would "require people who upload videos onto the Internet to obtain authorization from the Communications Ministry similar to that required by television broadcasters, drastically reducing freedom to communicate over the Web." Understandably, some say such controls represent a conflict of interest for Silvio Berlusconi, "who exercises political control over the state broadcaster RAI in his role as prime minister and is also the owner of Italy's largest private broadcaster, Mediaset."
That's horrific. An extremely oppressive requirement. I expect that anyone who disagrees with Silvio will be denied permission to upload anything. This is also impractical, because you can't expect every single citizen to apply for permission just to post videos of their cat onto youtube.
Thankfully, I think that this could be circumvented easily, by transferring video files to another country in an encrypted form, then getting friends in the other country to unencrypt and upload it for you.