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YouTube Legally Considered a TV Station In Italy
orzetto writes "Italian newspaper La Repubblica reports that YouTube and similar websites based on user-generated content will be considered TV stations (Google translation of Italian original) in Italian law, and will be subject to the same obligations. Among these, a small tax (500 €), the obligation to publish corrections within 48 hours upon request of people who consider themselves slandered by published content, and the obligation not to broadcast content inappropriate for children in certain time slots. The main change, though, is that YouTube and similar sites will be legally responsible for all published content as long as they have any form (even if automated) of editorial control. The main reason for this is probably that it will force YouTube to assume editorial responsibility for all published content, which facilitates the ongoing € 500M lawsuit of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi against YouTube because of content copyrighted by Berlusconi's TV networks that some users uploaded on YouTube. Berlusconi's Spanish TV station, TeleCinco, was previously defeated in court on the grounds that YouTube is not a content provider."
The best response to this would be "No more YouTube for Italy!"
A banana republic?
In America, Dominos is legally considered pizza.
the obligation not to broadcast content inappropriate for children in certain time slots
Given the nature of the internet being worldwide, that would be.... never.
But seriously, how do they expect to enforce this??
This is what happens when the leader of a country also controls the largest media conglomerate of that country. Control the media, and you control the people. Control the people, and you *keep* control of the media.
how do you correct keyboard cat?
Anybody want my mod points?
See, this is where I think Google should call Berlusconi's bluff. All they need to do is redirect Italian IPs to a page that says, "Due to the legal implications of new regulations, Google can no longer provide service to Italian site visitors" followed by a few informational links. Then, they just sit back and wait for public outcry to force the Italian government to backpedal, and continue on as usual.
Unless that guy owns all the companies which made the products you listed, you will only punish Italian companies and Italian workers because of one clueless politician.
When Caesar crossed the Rubicon.
All this will wind up doing is forcing YouTube to block Italian IP addresses. Problem solved. Then it's up to the outcries of the Italian people to get this retarding ruling reversed.
this is what happens if you elect a clown as prime minister. eventually your country becomes laughed at.
Read radical news here
And who voted that clueless politician in again?
There is a war going on for your mind.
If Google has no physical presence in Italy, they can tell Berlusconi to fuck off. The problem is that Google has servers and people all over the freakin' world. They may want to rethink that. As long as they insist on having Google employees "on the ground" around the globe, they're going to be hostage to random tin horn dictators and/or braindead legal systems. Google should consider sending shipping containers full of servers from the US to $(RandomCountry), and contracting with local IT people to maintain them (e.g. swap out the dead servers/drives from stock of spares). Strategic use of encryption can probably keep Google's secret sauce safe. If $(RandomDictatorship) wants to play hardball, the worst they could do is seize the equipment. Google can afford it. Meanwhile, they can continue serving search, youtube, etc., from servers in a nearby country.
Sudo Youtube is a TV Station.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
"The main change, though, is that YouTube and similar sites will be legally responsible of all published content as long as they have any form (even if automated) of editorial control."
Fine. Get rid of editorial control. All of it.
But then the Italian version of the RIAA/MPAAA/ASCAP/Insert your acronym here, are barred from suing, because there isn't any responsibility for the content except by the posters themselves.
Sounds fine by me.
--
BMO
Actually the Prime Minister is appointed by the President. So NOBODY voted for him.
When South Korea passed a law that requires large websites with user-generated contents to collect user's personal information, Google simply disabled the uploading and commenting features in YouTube for Korean users and encouraged them to set their locale to some other country. This continued for a year, shining a spotlight on South Korea's stupid law until the government gave up and exempted YouTube from the law.
sudo Youtube is a TV station.
Ok.
I wonder how long Italy is going to ignore it before the EU court or commission slaps Silvio so hard on his fingers that they fall off.
I know Italy isn't exactly a renegade terrorist dictatorship or anything, but such actions by a government with such a blatant conflict of interest is just wrong in principle. I think the U.S. government should put on its white hat and publicly take a stand against this. I mean, suppose Rupert Murdoch became prime minister of Australia and decided to fine any website that contradicted Fox News. Why should the U.S. cooperate with that?
Looking at it from a completely different angle, if putting videos where Italians can see them makes YouTube an Italian television station, then every website in the world that streams audio is an Italian radio station, and every news site is an Italian newspaper. The whole concept is patently ridiculous.
Without having read the post or article, here is my shot at what is going on just based on the headline: Counting youtube as a TV station obligates it to be regulated or otherwise bound by some strictures that will hinder its ability to compete with some media outlet(s) owned by Berlusconi.
This will be enforced how exaclty?
TaoPhoenix is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
David Eddings suggested the ultimate version of this in the Tamuli series in the Second Chapter of 'The Shining Ones'
On the Tegan government:
'Our elected officials have no outside interests. As soon as they're elected, everything they own is sold, and the money's put into the national treasury. If the economy prospers during their term in office, their wealth earns them a profit. If the economy collapses, they lose everything'
'That's absurd. No government ever makes a profit.
'Ours does,' she said smugly, 'and it has to be a real profit. The tax rates are set and cannot be changed, so our officials can't generate a false profit by simply raising taxes.'
'Why would anyone want to be an official in a government like that?'
'Nobody wants to be, Prince Sparhawk. Most Tegans do everything they possibly can to avoid election. The fact that a man's own personal fortune's in the treasury forces him to work just as hard as he possibly can to make sure that the government prospers. Many have worked themselves to death looking after
the interests of the Republic.'
To whom?
No doubt with Berlusconi owning TV stations and setting policy, there are all sorts of gravy flowing from tax payers to TV stations for google to now tap into? Make lemonade! I mean, IF there were something like "tax break if you show more than X hours of educational material in a year", google need just apply RIAA mathematics to show that they show positive infinity hours of educational material in a year.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
I think the commenters who say "youtube shoud block Italy" are not seeing the point here. Let's analyse the situation: worst case scenario, youtube drops "official" support for italy (servers, offices, localization...) but does not block IP since that is still a source of income. That way it hasn't to comply with the deliberation (it is *not* a law, this hasn't been voted by the parliament), and nearly nothing changes. What is the point of this, then? From the article:
Il problema più serio, rileva ancora Scorza, è che "nei vari processi contro YouTube, per esempio quello intentato da Mediaset per violazione di diritto d'autore, si rafforzerà il concetto che il sito ha una responsabilità editoriale. Dopo questa delibera, sarà difficile per il giudice stabilire il contrario".
Which translates in: "The more serious problem, says Scorza, is that in the various trials against Youtube, for example the one by Mediaset for copyright violation, the idea that the site has editorial responsibility is strenghtened. After this deliberation, it will be difficult for the judge to say otherwise."
In my opinion, this is the main point. The other requirements? The tax: irrelevant for youtube; the "protected" time slot: inapplicable, ignored (yes, it can, and will, be ignored); the "correction" of defamatory content: this can indeed be of some value (for B.), but doesn't youtube already take down contested videos if there is going to be legal action? And as I said before all these requirements just vanish if youtube doesn't have "official" business in Italy. So, all that remains is a quite large advantage in court for B.'s Mediaset.
http://xkcd.com/838/
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
Replying to undo moderation, I marked you "informative" but I meant to mark "funny".
P.S., does anybody know how to undo moderation in the current system? In the old one I had to press the moderation button. Now the moderation is immediate once I select from the pop-down menu and I don't see a way to undo it...
No way, I don't believe it.
Businesses with contrary interests do sometimes crop up as a heavy counterweight to the bad behavior of another business, practically speaking.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Who votes for the prime minister?
I always wondered where this setting was...
Hell Yes. Now I can catch Italian Law and Order re-runs. I'm glad someone is thinking of the children for once.
Who in their right mind gave Silvy root access?
Oh, right, the Italian voters. Never mind, I just work here.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In other words, if they're a democracy, then at some point the people will get to vote for someone who eventually appoints someone, and Italian companies back them with money.
So punishing Italian companies and workers is quite on target.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You can call oppression "regulation", it's still oppression.
Anyone with an IQ over 60 can see that this is just an act to censor the public, forcing YouTube to act as censor or face punishment.
In the eyes of fascists, the public should only consume media approved and/or provided by government and large corporations.
Says a lot about a government that would push policy such as this.
Can somebody please go and explain to Italy what the Internet is?
Enough said...
Your point?
There, fixed. Did you think they would stand together on this for principle or that one would raid the other's business just as fast as humanly possible?
Please! save us from this!
They just don't even know what is youtube...... That is the problem!
If the Italian government says youtube.com are responsible for user created content, I suggest that the Italian government shoulders responsibility for user created content under .it
I know there is (was?) an issue with *Chrome* and Slashdot and copy/paste, but this is the first time I heard of it affecting Safari.
BTW, I just copied and pasted that quote to Slashdot with Safari 5.0.3 (6533.19.4). :-)
This is great; I can't wait for when this comes to the U.S.
The idea that youtube is any different than a broadcast network and operates with impunity under one little exemption of the poorly written DMCA (which to any normal person's reading it should not even qualify for) is untenable, unsustainable, and generally contrary to any form of justice.
To all those that would argue that placing this responsibility on YouTube is infeasible, perhaps it is. But that is not NBC, ABC, or any of YouTube other competitors problem, and to force these networks to compete under penalty of different laws with an entity like YouTube is materially unfair. If NBC aired a Coldplay song without clearing the rights, they would be responsible for enormous damages or compensation to the band and its owners. If YouTube broadcasts the song to millions of internet users before it is reported and taken down, the rights holders receive nothing and have no standing to sue in court. This is obviously unfair.
Perhaps the real issue that needs to be confronted is not whether such protections are feasible or not, but whether services like YouTube and Facebook should even be allowed to exist; and at the least, if they are allowed to continue to exist, to at least be held legally accountable for their errors and mistakes, regardless if those are generated by their users, or directly by their employees.
Perhaps these company's are only so profitable because of the relatively minute size of their legal and clearance staff; perhaps it is because they are not truly paying their fair share of delivery costs (ie using a last mile providers bandwidth, forcing increased capacity and demand, but not paying a dime for it.)
I understand the arguments behind net neutrality etc; but that worked for when the Internet was run by educational institutions for the betterment of humankind. Now its run by corporations for profit; either ban the corporations, or set up some form of reasonable and rational legal framework that allows fair competition among entities in different segments, instead of this blind enrichment of a few parties who are exploiting large network effects for their personal benefit.
Just a quick update. It seems the law will be enforced only to Italian based companies...
So YouTube (Ireland), Daily Motion (France), and so on are extempt...
it should be pretty obvious to anyone that you can't have a democracy when the media is controlled by the person in power. yes, so obvious in fact that it seemed a mighty clever joke on my part. is it that hard to extend your thesis to an oligarchy? because the democracy you imagine is not happening here in the USA _any better_ than Venezuela, and the reason the so-called 'beacon of democracy' is nothing of the sort is very much due to the corporate monopoly on the media. cf Venezuela, allowing oligarchs to dominate the airwaves to promote the destruction of a wildly popular leader, simply so that they can restore their slave colony is not de facto anti-democratic, while the USA is right now dusting off discredited deeply anti-democratic claims of "sedition", or calling for an internet "kill switch" to control this last avenue for real democratic free speech, in response to a trivial threat to the republic (obviously it's not trivial from the POV of elite privilege, which tells you all you need to know about this unprecedented intl extralegal mobilization)
look sig is kool
"allowing oligarchs" should read "restricting oligarch's ability"
look sig is kool
Sadly this is true as most of the main-stream media in this country has been taken over by those with a corporate agenda (or by individuals with a political agenda, i.e. Rupert Murdoch). What's disappearing in this country is objective journalism. We don't really have a news media that is independently funded like the BBC, which is funded by British taxpayers but is mostly independent of the government. I think the closest we have is PBS with shows like Frontline which sadly gets labeled as "liberal media" because some of the stories they run are counter to the corporate or right-wing agenda.
I would not compare it with what's going on in Venezuela or Russia since that is far more controlled than the media is here. There are still independent media over here, it is just that they are often drowned out by the large media companies.
This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.