There is a great flaw in the Italian copyright law. It was written in 1941, it does not even undertand the meaning of BSD, GNU, and other open licenses.
Now, publishing under BSD is not forbidden, but to distribute legally the work on CDs in Italy you must pay a small levy to SIAE (Italian Authors and Editor Society). That does not make any sense. That monwy will go to other authors.
The European union has started reconsidering these matters. A change to this law is expected soon.
I'm Italian. I don't want to give shit to nobody, American or European. Please just spare me these fictional figures.
Back to point of this news. Not even a single italian has been jailed for p2p or accused based on this law. The Italian government, struck by cricitsm, has prepared new law proposal to remove jail for any personal and not money-producing usage of p2p. The parliament is expected to examine an pass the proposal right after the european election.
The "jail" emendments were pushed by FIMI (aka RIAA Italian Sector) and secretly added to the bill but of view of the deputies. The text was so obfuscated that only lawyers could interpret it.
No Italian would ever accept the opinion that jail is a proper response to mp3 sharing. Not even the oldest senators that don't know what the internet his. There is no way that a kid will go to jail for music: the scandal and protests would wipe out the majors from Italy.
As latin mediterraneans, we have a diffent point of view than other countries. Blatantly absurd attempts at limiting our privacy or freedom made by the recording industries are just a suicidal move.
If you examine the monthly or the yearly graph you can notice that after may 15th the traffic is dropped by 45-50%.
the "mix" is the high speed lan connecting all the italian providers - it gives the measure of the intra italy traffic, that includes universities, businesses and home users.
Aw geez. Stand back from Leone movies, Benigni, Troisi, De Sica, Fellini and all the others. They are evil. I suppose you think the academy awards they got were bribed by the mafia.
Please, avoid this kind of judgements if you don't know what you're talking about. Italy's movie industry is not as big and great as hollywood, but there are great movies produced in Italy.
It appears that it has been the Italian branch of RIAA (called FIMI) to dictate the jail part of that law. Though I would like Mr. Berlusconi to leave the Italian political scene asap, this one was not his work.
In Italy and the rest of Europe it's election time now, no politician or party would dare creating such an unpopular law unleas someone else had fooled (or bribed) him to.
Matteo thanks from clarifyng the situation. I am also from Italy, with some better fresh news.
As of May 31st, with unprecedented speed considering the tipical parliament times, the Italian minister of technology and innovation has published a press release (not yet translated in english, sorry -- when it will be I will post the link) that announces a second law to amend the one everyone is talking about. I know it is a silly way of making laws, but at least they recognized the flaws.
The most important announced change is that there will be a clear line drawn: if an Italian person makes out money (real cash, not just a saving by not buying something) out of downloads or uploads of copyrighted material, he will be pursued as a criminal, otherwise it will just be a civil offense cleared with a fine.
For non criminal offenses searches of private premises and wiretaps are not warrented by judges in Italy. That gives a better perspective on the outcome: "common" p2p will be virtually not subject of sanction, unless a person is caught in flagrance (doing p2p in public, maybe...:) )
During the time between now and the approval of the 2nd law (expected by the end of July) it is very unlikely that a judge will try to put in jail some people for p2p. By the time the trial would start the crime would have vanished from the Italian law.
For people that can read Italian, this is the link to the press release of the minister.
Thanks to all the people that debated about this issue, knowing it has made the Italian internet users feel a bit better.
Before leaving, I would like to point out that the Register has been very quick into noticing this "madness" made in Italy, but it also is not saying nothing about the changes. The same newspapers that were cited before published also these news some days ago. I suppose that only when there are silly enough news we are allowed to the international press. Maybe.
Slashdot Mirror
There is a great flaw in the Italian copyright law. It was written in 1941, it does not even undertand the meaning of BSD, GNU, and other open licenses.
Now, publishing under BSD is not forbidden, but to distribute legally the work on CDs in Italy you must pay a small levy to SIAE (Italian Authors and Editor Society). That does not make any sense. That monwy will go to other authors.
The European union has started reconsidering these matters. A change to this law is expected soon.
90% what? Aw geez how did you imagine that?
I'm Italian. I don't want to give shit to nobody, American or European. Please just spare me these fictional figures.
Back to point of this news. Not even a single italian has been jailed for p2p or accused based on this law. The Italian government, struck by cricitsm, has prepared new law proposal to remove jail for any personal and not money-producing usage of p2p. The parliament is expected to examine an pass the proposal right after the european election.
The "jail" emendments were pushed by FIMI (aka RIAA Italian Sector) and secretly added to the bill but of view of the deputies. The text was so obfuscated that only lawyers could interpret it.
No Italian would ever accept the opinion that jail is a proper response to mp3 sharing. Not even the oldest senators that don't know what the internet his. There is no way that a kid will go to jail for music: the scandal and protests would wipe out the majors from Italy.
As latin mediterraneans, we have a diffent point of view than other countries. Blatantly absurd attempts at limiting our privacy or freedom made by the recording industries are just a suicidal move.
It appears that many were scared.
You can have a look at the italian internet traffic here
http://www.mix-it.net/index_flash.htm
If you examine the monthly or the yearly graph you can notice that after may 15th the traffic is dropped by 45-50%.
the "mix" is the high speed lan connecting all the italian providers - it gives the measure of the intra italy traffic, that includes universities, businesses and home users.
Aw geez. Stand back from Leone movies, Benigni, Troisi, De Sica, Fellini and all the others.
They are evil. I suppose you think the academy awards they got were bribed by the mafia.
Please, avoid this kind of judgements if you don't know what you're talking about. Italy's movie industry is not as big and great as hollywood, but there are great movies produced in Italy.
Ask Mr Tarantino.
I forgot an important line:
It appears that it has been the Italian branch of RIAA (called FIMI) to dictate the jail part of that law. Though I would like Mr. Berlusconi to leave the Italian political scene asap, this one was not his work.
In Italy and the rest of Europe it's election time now, no politician or party would dare creating such an unpopular law unleas someone else had fooled (or bribed) him to.
Cheers,
Mauro
Matteo thanks from clarifyng the situation. I am also from Italy, with some better fresh news.
:) )
0 4_ 05_30.shtml
As of May 31st, with unprecedented speed considering the tipical parliament times, the Italian minister of technology and innovation has published a press release (not yet translated in english, sorry -- when it will be I will post the link) that announces a second law to amend the one everyone is talking about. I know it is a silly way of making laws, but at least they recognized the flaws.
The most important announced change is that there will be a clear line drawn: if an Italian person makes out money (real cash, not just a saving by not buying something) out of downloads or uploads of copyrighted material, he will be pursued as a criminal, otherwise it will just be a civil offense cleared with a fine.
For non criminal offenses searches of private premises and wiretaps are not warrented by judges in Italy. That gives a better perspective on the outcome: "common" p2p will be virtually not subject of sanction, unless a person is caught in flagrance (doing p2p in public, maybe...
During the time between now and the approval of the 2nd law (expected by the end of July) it is very unlikely that a judge will try to put in jail some people for p2p. By the time the trial would start the crime would have vanished from the Italian law.
For people that can read Italian, this is the link to the press release of the minister.
http://www.innovazione.gov.it/ita/comunicati/20
Thanks to all the people that debated about this issue, knowing it has made the Italian internet users feel a bit better.
Before leaving, I would like to point out that the Register has been very quick into noticing this "madness" made in Italy, but it also is not saying nothing about the changes. The same newspapers that were cited before published also these news some days ago. I suppose that only when there are silly enough news we are allowed to the international press. Maybe.