Italy Approves Jail for P2P Users 533
funkdid writes "Italy has made transferring content via the Internet without the permission of the copyright holder a criminal offence.Those found guilty of the unauthorised distribution of copyright material now face a fine of between 154 and 1032 ($185-1240), a jail sentence of between six months and three years, the confiscation of their hardware and software, and the revelation of their misdeeds in Italy's two national newspapers, La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera."
Email is copyrighted... (Score:5, Interesting)
Italian law? (Score:3, Interesting)
Italian bootlegs (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone care to comment on this or clear it up?
Cheers,
Vic
RIAA Attacks Single Mom (Score:3, Interesting)
(Linked via the Drudge Report [drudgereport.com] -- hopefully more articles like this will further add to the drumbeat of realization... by the public at large):
Single mom overwhelmed by recording industry suit [siliconvalley.com]
GPL violations? (Score:5, Interesting)
And people complain that they are afraid of the viral nature of the GPL - this would really scare them!
Newspapers (Score:3, Interesting)
If I copyright my criminal record (Score:1, Interesting)
Welcome Italy! (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong, I think this is complete BS and wrong on soooooo many levels...
But it's nice to know that America isn't the biggest (or the only) a$$-hat when it comes to p2p. Up until now, we've looked draconian in our handling of such matters compared to other parts of the world.
This makes what the RIAA is doing look like a slap on the wrist. Hopefully they don't get any ideas.
Re:Italian law? (Score:1, Interesting)
Every year, there are people who are charged with crimes that they didn't actually commit. However, their names are splashed around newspapers and people begin to know them as "the person who did [insert crime]." So, even if they are found innocent, they will never TRULY be innocent in the public's eyes.
Carry this over to what's going on in Italy. If you are caught for theft of copyrighted works, your boss, your friends/family -- everybody will see what you have done. This will bring disgrace upon everybody you are associated with. (Not everybody is as forgving for P2P acts as Slashdotters are.) This may result in a loss of your job/friends/whatever. That...is bad.
Also, a good exmaple about what I discussed above can be found in one of the short stories in Frederick Forsyth's book, No Comebacks. (Yeah, same guy who wrote "Day of the Jackal")
Google Cache going away? (Score:5, Interesting)
Scouring for test cases (Score:4, Interesting)
Yet... (Score:4, Interesting)
This results in a lot of these bootlegging companies paying less than a cent per unit manufactured to the record companies for "compensation." This new law seems sort of extreme if they still allow this other behavior.
Insurance Penalties Fines (Score:2, Interesting)
It's the insurance companies that do.
If I get caught speeding, sure, I have to pay a fine to the town / county. No biggie.
But then, I get "points" on my insurance. And while those points stay there, I have to pay a higher premium.
Frankly, getting jail time for P2P scares the crap out of me. I'm glad Im not in Italy.
I mean, paying the RIAA a few grand is bad, but getting tossed in the slammer would really suck. Besides the obvious suckiness, you'd probably lose your job, and then have to admit you're a fellon for your interviews.
Re:At least the trains will run on time. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Italian bootlegs (Score:5, Interesting)
They took advantage of this to make money both through recordings and artists failing to collect.
My understanding is that the US threatened their operations, maybe the RIAA via proxy, and they ceased for that reason.
I know the full story is out there, as my friend dealt with them often. I'll post more once I know more.
How does this affect trade relations in the US. (Score:5, Interesting)
Does this mean that a US citizen could face extradition for copyright violation?
Oh yeah, I blame this squarely on the Italian PM, who I am pretty sure owns most of the media in the country.
Publishing v. private communications (Score:4, Interesting)
P2P is a form of publishing. When you publish information, you really should play by the rules of the publishing industry.
You are correct in that the short blurb does not drawing a clean line on the difference between private communications and publishing. If Italy failed to draw this line then they have a flawed law.
It seems to me that the aim of such measures is to draw a distinction between private communications and publishing. Forwarding to an email to a friend is just communication. Forwarding an email to a mailing list or posting it online is a form of publishing.
calling P2P private communications to the world does not change the fact that it is a form of publishing.
Why don't they adapt themselves? (Score:3, Interesting)
I think that world record industry should apapt instead of sue.
They must find a way to distribuite music easily and and cheaper. Music stores are getting obsolete, webshops like Amazon takes too long. How long does it take for downloading a whole CD?
Prices are too high. But downloads aren't fast enough. They must avoid people from downloading any kind of music by giving them reasons to do so.
Jailing your own customers aren't a good options. Nobody buys CDs in jail.
The solution is to lower price, I think that US$ 5/CD or US$ 0,25/track are good prices, low enough to avoid people for downloading music. In Brazil piracy is so evolved that you can buy a CD for US$ 2,00, and you can buy a CD on every corner. Many people prefer to low quality CDs because it's cheaper, easier and faster, there's always somebody selling pirated CDs.
That's the solution. Make downloading boring and time-consuming, so it's better to buy a CD (or tracks) then to download it from any P2P network.
Re:Idiots... (Score:3, Interesting)
Why? Your major and local media do the same thing on a daily basis. In that sense, Slashdot is as every bit a news organization as you pretend they're not.
Chuck
Re:GPL violations? (Score:3, Interesting)
Best way to get this law taken off the books? Start strictly enforcing it against software companies.
So let me guess... (Score:1, Interesting)
Where is proportionality? Where is "punishment fits the crime"? WHAT are they smoking over there???
Re:RIAA Attacks Single Mom (Score:5, Interesting)
How, exactly does one "follow the songs" once they're downloaded? The only thing that comes to mind is that the RIAA must be offering the files for download. Then, when little Cassandra downloads the song, the RIAA has her IP, and can browse what she has on offer.
IANAL, but isn't that a form of entrapment? And isn't that
Re:Publishing v. private communications (Score:5, Interesting)
The article states earlier:
In my eyes it looks like you get to prison by using Google cache or similar. Am I wrong?
Besides, how do you know if the copyrightholder have allowed you to download the content? Hell. It would even be dangerous to download "terms of service", because it is copyrighted.
This thing is not going to work out very well.
Doesn't This Make the Web Illegal in Italy? (Score:5, Interesting)
Since the web works by transferring content, and since in the EU all content is automatically granted copyright protection from the moment of inception: isn't the WWW now illegal in Italy?
This is why we need Copyright Reform (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, I think there's a way to fix it that would be simple and fair for everyone. We need to change the legal definition of what a copyright means. Simply put, a copyright should grant the creator of a work the sole ability to collect revenue based on any use of that work. That's it, that's what you get, and nothing more. You write a book, record a song, make a movie, and you're the only one allowed to make money from it.
If someone is doing something with your work but not cashing in, guess what? Tough beans. You don't get to pull out any bullshit about "lost profits", because all that does is make for more lawyers arguing what that means, and God knows we've got enough of those. You've been granted the right to be the only person in the country who can legally make money from any use of your work, and that's an immensely powerful right. Sorry, but you don't get to have that, AND make that money by sitting on your ass suing people.
Now likewise, if you ARE using someone's copyrighted work to make money, we're going to come down real hard on you. Money always leaves a trail. And the Justice Department will have more than enough bulldogs freed up from hunting fileswappers to chase you down. Not to mention that income has to be -reported-. Try avoiding that, and see how quick the IRS gets after you too. Changing the currently unbalanced copyright laws to be fair to all sides means there will be more serious enforcement.
Ok, I don't really know how great a solution this is and it was a quick explanation, but this being Slashdot I'm sure someone can add something to it.
Wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
Currently, just over 1/2 (54.7%-2002) in prison for all drug offenses, and declining from a high of 61.3% in 1994.
The BOP [bop.gov] has lots of stats on this.
He's a wannabe dictator (Score:2, Interesting)
The guy is a nut.
Re:At least the trains will run on time. (Score:3, Interesting)
You're right that you're not as up to date on Italian politics as you should be, but I can assure you that I don't wake up in the morning thinking I wonder what's happening in Italy today. I am however fortunate that my sources of news are such that big stories like Berlusconi's fascist tendencies and links are unlikely to pass me by. If I were you I'd be asking myself how come nobody told me about this, after all it's through control of the media that Berlusconi has been able to assume power in Italy.
Re:You think we don't have our RIAA? (Score:3, Interesting)
So if you're burning your downloaded MP3s to CDs you should be OK, right? After all, you did pay the RIAA for being able to do it.
Since this is Italy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Which, since this is Italy, is practically everything.
Speaking on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of Italian P2P users, what are Italian jails like?
Are they sex torture rape factories like American prisons? Are they government profit centers like Mexican prisons (where you have to buy your own food)? If you download really big files and get the death penality, do they charge your family 50 cents like the Chinese do? Are they just 'work the zeks until they drop' slave-labor camps like the Soviet Gulags?
Come on, Italian politicians, you passed a law to put tens of thousands of your own young people in prison for activities that few civilized people consider to be a crime. Now that you have your 'law', what are you going to do with it?
Re:I guess you expect that... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Since this is Italy... (Score:3, Interesting)
Did the Mafia help get this law passed in order to revive their ancient public image as the last bulwark against total Roman oppression?
Re:At least the trains will run on time. (Score:1, Interesting)
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
- Benito Mussolini
Benito would say that you are both right.
Re:Italian speeding (Score:1, Interesting)
That took about 2 seconds to find
Re:Publishing v. private communications (Score:3, Interesting)
Why stop there, as long as you're having some fun with the laws of the land there's plenty of other ways to play. AFAIK, it would seem that in the US for example it would be fully possible to copyright a virus and add some sort of encryption to it. As soon as an anti-virus company reverse engineered it to release a fix you could hit them for DMCA violations.
Re:Bogus arguments 101 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:At least the trains will run on time. (Score:5, Interesting)
The Nazis were elected to office in a nice democratic fashion. Hitler was a democratically selected protector of property rights. For select people.
Fascism is not the opposite of democracy. Fascism ARISES from democracies. For the keystone of any really successful fascist takeover is the mainstream support of the majority of the population.
Fascism: popular leader. fingering of the Enemy. State support of corporate power -- that's Mussolini's definition, by the way. Militarism (war porn). Dismissal or suppression of dissent -- especially when the suppression comes from the majority of the people themselves.
This definition of fascism contrasts with dictatorship, which is imposed with or without the consent of the governed. Fascism is popular support of a suppressive government.
On the other hand, this is a good indication of how prosperous our lives these days. Instead of worrying about being killed in a concentration camp so your race can be ethnically cleansed, we are worried about not being able to get a free copy of a Brittney Spears song.
Or reading the Secret Scriptures of a highly corrupt corporate/religious cult. All you have do do after declaring copyright violations a federal crime is simply change the definition of what a copyright IS, and then you can control what people can and cannot read, forever. For instance, simply redefine copyright terms as unlimited. Ooops -- already done.
The concept of copyright was a compromise. In exchange for the ownership of the right to copy, the owners have to give up the copyright after a brief period so that the work could enrich the commons.
That deal is broken. Now we simply have corporations owning blocks of human endeavor for all time, never giving it up, trading the knowledge and lore of humanity like blocks of downtown real estate.
This is not what copyright was meant for. This new corporate power grab spells the end of the line for human arts, since every new work is in some way linked to something done before.
Jurisdiction (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:At least the trains will run on time. (Score:3, Interesting)
Contrary to popular belief, capitalism does not require profit; it requires only voluntary association. Profit, or the creation of wealth, is a desirable outcome of capitalism, not the core concept. The core concept is simply freedom -- the freedom to operate on the principle of voluntary association and mutual benefit (trade).