Italy Prepares '"One Strike" Anti-Piracy Law

angry tapir writes "The Italian government is preparing an anti-piracy law that could ban Internet users from access after one alleged copyright infringement, a lawyer and an analyst warned. ISPs would be required to use filters against services that infringe copyright, trademark or patents under terms of the draft law. The proposed changes to Italy's e-commerce directive were drafted in July by members of parliament belonging to the Il Popolo della Libertà (PdL) party of prime minister Silvio Berlusconi."

Comments

Filtering traffic eh?

[GeneralTurgidson]

So anything that gets by this amazing filter isnt considered piracy? Sweet.

In Other Words

[cosm]

The Italian government is acting as the protector of corporate profits. What a white knight they are! Can there be a "One Strike" bad politician law so that after their first major fuck-up they get to go to federal PMIA prison for a minimum of 1 year? What's good for the goose is good for the gander!

Re:In Other Words

[MightyMartian]

Well, more directly of Berlusconi's corporate profits. Why the Italians haven't drowned this guy in the Tiber is quite beyond me. A crook, a disgusting old letch, and on top of it a complete ass, who for all his vaunted business skills, is still overseeing the drive to keep Italy one of the "I"s in "PIIGS".

Re:In Other Words

[PopeRatzo]

Why the Italians haven't drowned this guy in the Tiber is quite beyond me.

I'm not so sure he can be drowned. Judging from the quality of the poontang he gets, he must be able to breathe through his ears.

Either that or the women are just hookers, which is probably more likely.

You would think that if the people of Italy didn't drown Berlusconi for the way he's run the country, at least they'd drown him for having sex with an underage girl. But after having spent years living and working in Italy, I'm comfortable saying that most Italians don't really believe women are fully human. Women in Italy are treated at least as badly as those in the most conservative muslim countries, albeit in a less obviously ugly way. And I say this as the son of Italian immigrants. As a people they've got a lot to recommend them, but respect for women is not part of it.

Hell, just last year an Italian man was given a suspended sentence after being found guilty of murdering his wife because she had been "disrespectful".

This will never fly

[bmo]

But that's not the point of this bill.

It's the industry proposing something just short of decapitation, versus the current situation that non-profit file sharing is explicitly legal.

Somewhere in the middle is "compromise" where everyone loses except the rent-seeking gatekeepers of culture.

"See, it wasn't as bad as what we wanted"

--
BMO

Re:This will never fly

[mgiuca]

"See, it wasn't as bad as what we wanted"

This technique is so common that there's a name for it: The Door-in-the-face technique.

The persuader attempts to convince someone to comply with a request by first making an extremely large request that the respondent will obviously turn down, with a metaphorical slamming of a door in the persuader's face. The respondent is then more likely to accede to a second, more reasonable request than if this second request were made without the first, extreme request. ... A reference point construal may explain this phenomenon, as the initial bad offer sets a reference point from which the second offer looks like an improvement.

Re:This will never fly

[Opportunist]

I want to use the music I buy on the medium I choose.
I want to archive and store it where and how I please.
I want to watch a movie without hours of ads for movies I don't give half a shit about.
I want to store those movies on my (media) server hard drive instead of discs, which are prone to break and which I'd have to find first of all in the mess of my apartment.
I want to play the games I buy without having to have a connection to the internet if it is not required for the game to work.
I want to use software without handing in everything but my shoe size about me before it allows me to use it.
I want to record and time shift shows off TV the way I see fit and I expect the ads to be skipable. That technology was already very available on Betamax.

need I go on?

Re:This will never fly

[maxwell demon]

"I want to not get punished for things I haven't even done just because someone claims I did it."
How's that for a start?

There's a reason why due process exists. This type of law is a punishment without a court being involved. It is not necessary to be proven guilty. It suffices that someone claims you are. That's what's bad about it. That's several orders of magnitude more important than any question of copyright. It's about the foundation of the rule of law. Due process. No punishment without conviction. That's what this is about. Therefore it's also completely irrelevant here what you think about downloading of music. I'd be against this type of law even if it were about murder, despite the fact that I definitely do not think murder should be legalized.

Again, this is not about the legality of music download. This is about the foundation of the rule of law.

Shooting themselves in the foot

[jspenguin1]

If this passes, every single MP that votes for this will suddenly find hundreds of copyright complaints against them...

Ban Cisco from the Internet ?

[bug1]

Cisco violated the GPL with Linksys.

Lets see Italy ban Cisco from using the internet.

What, the law only applies to individuals violating for personal use, its ok for companies to violating copyright for financial reasons. I get it now,

MAFIAA is strong in Italy

BRILLIANT!

[Sasayaki]

I wholeheartedly support this "One Strike" law. As the first barrage in the torrent (heh!) of complaints, let me fire this one off:

http://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-steals-code-violates-linkware-license/

I demand 100% complete disconnection of the MPAA, including subsidaries, partent companies, any company where any member of the MPAA (or subsidaries, parent companies, etc) is a shareholder in whole or in part, from ALL Italian users. They cannot connect to ANY Italian IP address, on pain of defying a court order (or whatever the punishment is for evading the 'one strike' law).

Any "evidence" gathered against Italian internet users is null and void because in order to gather that evidence they had broken the "one strike" rule in Italy. And, of course, the MPAA would never download something they didn't actually own the rights to, therefore committing copyright infringement themselves, right? Never? ...

Oh wait, the laws don't apply to those who make them? The MPAA is allowed to commit the worst kind of copyright infringement -- claiming you created something you didn't, and then using it for commercial purposes and making a bunch of money with it -- and that doesn't count as a strike? Because they are immune to their own law?

Oh damn.

Well, it was a nice thought anyway.

Re:Welcome to even worse class disparity

[mywhitewolf]

or, much more likely they inherited opportunities that aren't afforded to others. Once you have an advantage (ie money for the rich), then its prudent to keep on using your advantage to leverage yourself some more advantage... (ie, it's a lot easier to make money when you already have some).

if they use that money to affect politics in ways that the majority are against, then the working class are already at a disadvantage as they can't afford to compete in the same domain.

It has nothing to do with intelligence.

Re:Not surprising from that party

[leenks]

The profound incompetence is a given in politics.

There, fixed it for you.