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Archive for the ‘italy’ Category

Facebook Pulls Italian Neo-Nazi Pages After Outcry: “Facebook removed several pages from its site used by Italian neo-Nazis to incite violence after European politicians accused the Internet social networking site of allowing a platform to racists.

(Via NYT > Technology.)

Post from: TorrentFreak

Court Deems Pirate Bay Block to be Illegal: “

This August The Pirate Bay was ‘censored’ in Italy following a decree from a public prosecutor. The Pirate Bay appealed the block and eventually won the court case. Earlier this week the Court of Bergamo detailed its decision, and ruled that no foreign website can be censored for alleged copyright infringement.

Two months ago, following an order from an Italian prosecutor, ISPs started to prevent their customers from accessing the Pirate Bay. The administrators of the popular BitTorrent tracker were accused of making copyrighted material available on the Internet for commercial purposes.

Of course, the Pirate Bay team didn’t agree, and responded in true Pirate Bay style. ‘We’re quite used to fascist countries not allowing freedom of speech. A lot of smaller nations that have dictators decide to block our site since we can help spread information that could be harmful to the dictators,’ Sunde wrote in a blog entry.

The BitTorrent tracker was not going down without a fight, and later announced that it would appeal the decision in court, which they won. The block was lifted and ISPs could again grant their users access to the most frequently used BitTorrent tracker on the Internet.

The Court of Bergamo decided that this block was unlawful, and earlier this week they explained why. According to the court statement (Italian), no criminal court is allowed to issue an order to ISPs to block traffic to a foreign website, based on alleged copyright infringement. Italian law implements an European Directive, 2000/31 CE, which this means that this ruling should be valid in other European countries as well.

‘Under Italian law, this is possible only for child porn and for unauthorized gambling, but there is no such provision for copyright infringement,’ Pirate Bay’s lawyers Giovanni Battista Gallus and Francesco Micozzi explained to TorrentFreak.

‘We have to make sure that no legislative bill promoting such filtering provisions will be passed in the future. At the European level, many authorities pointed out the need to find a balance between the enforcement of alleged copyright infringements, users’ rights, and privacy issues.’

In hindsight, the block only helped the Pirate Bay to grow even further. The case generated a lot of free promotion, and the number of visitors from Italy increased by 5 percent. Not exactly the outcome IFPI had hoped for.

(Via TorrentFreak.)

Post from: TorrentFreak

Pirate Bay Wins Court Case, Italian Block Lifted: “

The Pirate Bay has successfully appealed the decision of an Italian judge who had ordered ISPs to block access to the popular BitTorrent tracker last month. The Court of Bergamo decided that this block was unlawful, and that Italian users should regain access to the site.

This August, out of nowhere, The Pirate Bay was ‘censored’ in Italy following a decree from a public prosecutor. The block didn’t prove to be particularly effective, as traffic from Italy only increased. Nevertheless, The Pirate Bay was determined to reverse the decision, and in that mission they have succeeded.

The Court of Bergamo has now lifted the block, and ISPs are again allowed to grant their users access to the most frequently used BitTorrent tracker on the Internet. More details on the decision, and the reason why the block was reversed, will be made public later.

In a previous interview, Pirate Bay’s lawyers Giovanni Battista Gallus and Francesco Micozzi described the order as ‘‘original’ or ‘creative’ at best,’ and said it should not have been ordered in the first place because of the lack of jurisdiction. In addition, they argued that The Pirate Bay is not breaking any laws since it’s not distributing copyright infringing material.

The court’s decision might set an important precedent for BitTorrent sites in Italy, especially for Colombo-BT, the largest Italian torrent site, which was shut down by the same prosecutor responsible for the Pirate Bay block. The action against Colombo-BT was orchestrated by the anti-piracy outlet IFPI, which also hijacked all Italian Pirate Bay visitors following the block.

Visitors who were blocked from The Pirate Bay were redirected to an IFPI server, instead of a server operated by the Italian government. This is again an example of how lobby groups such as the IFPI, MPAA and RIAA are treated as government institutions. Since many Pirate Bay visitors claimed their privacy was violated, the Italian Pirate Party and Altroconsumo filed a complaint with the ombudsman earlier this week.

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

The Pirate Bay Appeals Italian Blockade

The Pirate Bay has decided to fight the decision of an Italian judge after it ordered ISPs to block access to the popular tracker. The blocks didn’t prove particularly effective as traffic from Italy only increased but nevertheless, The Pirate Bay is determined to reverse the decision.

Yesterday, The Pirate Bay filed an appeal against the decree that forced Italian ISPs to block the BitTorrent tracker. Pirate Bay’s lawyers Giovanni Battista Gallus and Francesco Micozzi are convinced that they have a strong case. ‘The decree can be defined as ‘original’ or ‘creative’ at best’ they told TorrentFreak.

The Pirate Bay administrators are accused of making copyrighted material available on the Internet for commercial purposes. Giovanni and Francesco told us that this is a strange accusation, considering the nature of the site. ‘…even the judge who issued the decree states that no infringing material is hosted on The Pirate Bay, which provides just a tracker search engine,’ they told us.

‘The judge tries to ‘create’ a sort of contributory infringement accusation against The Pirate Bay,’ the lawyers explained. It is alleged that the tracker and the search engine are absolutely necessary for the users to ‘search and locate the content on single computers’. That’s not all, the judge goes even further by stating that the name of the site, ‘The Pirate Bay’, signals intent to infringe copyright.

The lawyers think that because of the lack of jurisdiction, the block should not have been issued in the first place. They also dispute the claim that The Pirate Bay is distributing copyright infringing material. ‘We will bring all our arguments before the Tribunal, and we are confident of the Tribunal’s decision,’ they said.

In previous articles, we suggested that the IFPI, Pirate Bay’s arch rival, might have had a hand in the block. The reverse DNS of the ‘blocked page’ pointed to IFPI’s servers, although they have changed that now. This is suspicious to say the least, and Pirate Bay’s lawyers told us: ‘It is clear that this decree has been strongly backed up by FIMI (the Italian IFPI),’ citing a press release FIMI published where they applauded the Pirate Bay block.

A Tribunal of three judges will now look into the appeal, and a decision is expected in a few weeks. After that, the decision of the Tribunal can be further appealed by both parties before the Higher Court.

Italian authorities attempt to take on Pirate Bay: “Italian internet service providers have attempted to block access to peer-to-peer (P2P) link-sharing site The Pirate Bay. The Pirate Bay claims that the action was taken on the orders of Italian prosecutor Giancarlo Mancusi.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

Google to face charges over Down syndrome video: “Google is to face criminal charges in Italy over a video which appeared on one of its sites showing a disabled teenager being taunted by his peers.”

(Via Tech and Web from Times Online.)

Italian authorities raid alleged music filesharing forum: “

Megaupload and Rapidshare link site targeted

Italy’s Guardia di Finanza has shut down forum site Downrevolution.net for offering links to pirated music, video and software hosted on popular filesharing sites.…

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(Via The Register - Public Sector.)