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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."
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Italy Approves Jail for P2P Users

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  • by WigginX ( 104107 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:00PM (#9270083)
    Can I still forward emails to Italy?
    • Maybe we should include footers in the line of "I allow any recipient of this email to forward it without my written conscent".
    • I am italian and I declare that the content of this post is copyright is not redistributable. Cmdrtaco, I'm waiting for you at the airport along with the police :)
    • by yintercept ( 517362 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:25PM (#9270411) Homepage Journal
      Those found guilty of the unauthorised distribution

      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.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:28PM (#9270435)
        now companies will copyright information about their wrong doings.

        and when people "publish" it in an expose, they get to go to jail.

        watch...it'll happen.
      • by Fulkkari ( 603331 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:41PM (#9270595)

        The article states earlier:

        The Italian parliament yesterday voted in favour of imposing jail sentences of up to three years on anyone caught uploading or downloading unauthorised copyright material to and from the Net.

        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.

        • How would you know?

          Common sense, 99% of the time.

          Think about it... if you see the full Spiderman2 movie on your favorite peer-to-peer network several weeks before the movie is even out in theatres, it's not that big a stretch to come up with the idea that this might be getting distributed without consent of the copyright holders.

          Of course, the flip side of this is that if you are downloading something called "mary had a little lamb.mov", and it just so _happens_ to be the full Spiderman movie, dependi

    • by Simonetta ( 207550 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @04:30PM (#9271126)
      Since this is Italy, I assume this law only really applies to downloading materials that come from companies that Berlusconi owns a controlling interest in.

      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?
      • The Mafia was formed to protect ordinary people from laws like this coming from Rome. Just as soon as you get the gangsters under some form of control, the politicians do something totally stupid to revive it.

        Did the Mafia help get this law passed in order to revive their ancient public image as the last bulwark against total Roman oppression?
        • The Mafia was formed to protect ordinary people from laws like this coming from Rome. Just as soon as you get the gangsters under some form of control, the politicians do something totally stupid to revive it.

          Did the Mafia help get this law passed in order to revive their ancient public image as the last bulwark against total Roman oppression?


          Get ready for "The Godfather IV - Vote from the Rooftops"
  • FP (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    FP - I guess everyone else is deleting their Shared Folders :)
  • by Anonymous Coward
    From the country that gave us the mafia.
  • I guess the fascists are back in power these days?
    • by Lochin Rabbar ( 577821 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:13PM (#9270271)

      My aren't you quick on the uptake [bbc.co.uk].

    • berlusconi (president of italy) is a strange politician. He's accused of corruption and has called a german politician a nazi or something like that. But he's more fasist I think then anyone in europe
      • by AsparagusChallenge ( 611475 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:56PM (#9270767)
        president of italy

        Prime minister please.

        He's accused of corruption and has called a german politician a nazi or something like that. But he's more fasist I think then anyone in europe

        Not just that; he's quite the media mogul:

        1974: Telemilano
        1980: Canale 5
        1983: Italia 1
        1984: Rete 4
        1985: (movie theater chain), Milan AC soccer club
        1990: publishing conglomerate Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A

        Source: http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/B/htmlB/berlusco nis/berlusconis.htm

        Tyrannical media control law? Just do the math.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:19PM (#9270337)
      Not the fascists, the capitalists. Silvio Berlusconi, the prime minister of Italy is a huge media mogul! Of course he wants P2P to be illegal.
      • Capitalism implies the lack of government (force) in the market, not the presence of it. When government is entangled in the market, tilting the scales in favor of special interests, it's not capitalism! There may be elements of capitalism present, but it is just plain wrong to label any society where government is heavily entangled in the market as "capitalist". Government is force. Force is the exact opposite of voluntary association, which is the core principle of capitalism.

        Contrary to popular belief,

    • Fascists? Why yes, yes they are. They're called Corporations. Of course, they need to assume the mantle of government to get the full effect of socioeconomic fascism.

      Somewhere in Italy, the concept of "the punishment should fit the crime" just took a dump.
  • Not testing before making production changes, or jailing P2P users??
  • Italian law? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by GrouchoMarx ( 153170 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:02PM (#9270111) Homepage
    Perhaps someone can explain to this ignorant American exactly how the government can use publication in a newspaper as a punishment for a crime (whatever the crime may be). At least here in the US, we at least pretend to have freedom of the press.
    • Perhaps someone can explain to this ignorant American exactly how the government can use publication in a newspaper as a punishment for a crime (whatever the crime may be). At least here in the US, we at least pretend to have freedom of the press.

      Perhaps the Italian papers are simply accepting a paid classified ad, similar to an obituary notice. When someone changes their name, aren't they also required to publish this in a local paper in the US?
    • Well actually some local governments in the US have been known to publish offenders names in the local newspapers. I think Naperville IL publishes the names of people arrested for DUIs in one of the local papers. I don't think the papers are compelled to carry this, but to them it's just more ad money.

    • I imagine this would be much like the "crime report" section of American papers, but would list the person's name also. I guess it's meant to shame the person.

    • I spent about 25 years practising law in Italy, so I feel that I am uniquely qualified to answer this question.

      Italy also has a notion of freedom of the press, although they call it "illa libertario della prensa." However, there is also something called the "obligation of the press" (illa obligadrio della prensa) in which all nationally-sanctioned newspapers are required to print certain materials. Much like legal notices and novenas in American newspapers, the Italian government has the power to influen
    • I seem to recall that years ago a number of municipalities around the US raised a stink by publishing the names of people who had been convicted of the truly terrible offense of visiting a prostitute.

      I suppose it stopped when someone too high up was found on one of the lists.
    • Re:Italian law? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Rude Turnip ( 49495 )
      At least one of the local papers here in NJ publish the names and street name of residence of guys who have been busted for picking up hookers. You think that wouldn't be punishment?

  • Italian bootlegs (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Vic ( 6867 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:03PM (#9270114) Homepage
    It's interesting that this would happen in Italy. From my understanding (I'm not an expert in this), Italy has had very relaxed laws about bootlegged music, especially live recordings. That's why so many concert CDs come from Italy.

    Anyone care to comment on this or clear it up?

    Cheers,
    Vic
    • Re:Italian bootlegs (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:13PM (#9270267)
      Italy's prime minister is a high up executive of one of their major media conglomerates. Its a major conflict of interest. I believe the company has dealings with both music and owns the newspapers as well as some national television stations.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Re:Italian bootlegs (Score:5, Interesting)

      by michael path ( 94586 ) * on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:18PM (#9270318) Homepage Journal
      Kiss the Stone was there for quite a while at http://www.kts.it and http://www.kissthestone.com. They were a prominant live CD seller because the way things worked was they could have shows recorded, and sell the recording IF they allocated money for the artist featured in the recording (I believe through an escrow account). IF the money went uncollected after XX length, they could keep it. This would put the responsibility on the artist to collect the money.

      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.
    • by spamhog ( 705867 )
      This country is used to monumentally bad laws.

      I am not talking just abour principle: it's the logic that just fails victim to ignorance, superficiality, and sloppiness. It gets worse if you add Catholic and Marxist ideological fixations.

      Plus, we have about 120,000 laws on the books - Germany has about 5,000. The result is a quagmire, with lots of laws not being enforced until someone in the judiciary, in some police force, or an enterprising lawyer for some slighted private interest wakes up one morning
  • by EsbenMoseHansen ( 731150 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:03PM (#9270117) Homepage
    .. but this is insane by any standard. Only the most extreme economic offenses should be punishable by imprisonment. Fines and compensation can do for the rest.
    • Enforce it. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by blamanj ( 253811 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:11PM (#9270243)
      The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly. -- Abraham Lincoln

      If this law is really so draconian as the discription implies (this is /. after all), then I'd go looking for an intelligent, like-minded DA (or whatever the Italian equivalent is) and have him start arresting people left and right for the slightest violation, as long as it meets the letter of the law.

      I guarantee we'd here the angry screams all the way to N. America and it would be dropped pretty darn fast, I'll bet.
      • Re:Enforce it. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by cheeseSource ( 605209 ) <snailbarn@yahoFO ... m minus language> on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:21PM (#9270354) Journal
        You would think so, but look at drug enforcement in the U.S. Incarceration is at an all time high. In general there are more people in prision in the U.S. per capita than anywhere else in the world; but guess what...

        Nothing has changed.
        • Re:Enforce it. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by geek ( 5680 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:37PM (#9270549)
          This is because felons can't vote. If they could then change would be possible, but by arresting and convicting people, thus taking away their constiutional rights you handicap them. If convicted unjustly, or if said law is repealed you are still a felon unable to vote. It's one of the oldest tricks in the book and is why a huge part of the black community is left as a permanent under class unable to effect change.
          • Re:Enforce it. (Score:3, Informative)

            by darf ( 182630 ) *
            This is false. The choice to allow a free felon to vote is made on a state by state basis.

            This is from the DOJ website: "The right to vote is an important civil right in a democracy as well as a civil responsibility, and yet many persons who have been convicted of a crime do not know whether they are eligible to vote. For both federal and state elections, the right to vote is controlled by the law of the state in which you live. Some states restrict the right to vote for persons who have been convicted of
        • Guess what?

          Large government contractors make lots of money off building and running prisons.
      • Re:Enforce it. (Score:3, Informative)

        by Nephilium ( 684559 )
        It all depends on whom it's being enforced *against*... a local community by me forced through a draconian curfew about ten years ago... basically no one under 18 was allowed to be out of their homes after 10:30 PM... the police hated it and fought against it... it got passed and the first person arrested for it was the mayor's daughter... coming home from work...

        The curfew lasted six months after that I think...

        So if you are going to go through harsh enforcement the key is to go after the government m
    • by AgentTim3 ( 447311 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:49PM (#9270699) Journal
      The whole problem is that we've allowed corporations and other commercial entities to redefine what "illegally copy" means. I mean really, who was it that decided to give them this kind of Godlike power, without any associated responsibility or accountability??

      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.
  • by Etcetera ( 14711 ) * on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:04PM (#9270122) Homepage

    (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]

    • by Greedo ( 304385 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:38PM (#9270558) Homepage Journal
      Here's a quote from that article (emphasis added):
      The record companies follow the songs when they're downloaded onto computers, and they also note how many copyrighted songs are stored on that computer's hard drive memory, because those songs are often "uploaded" or shared with others through the file-sharing service.
      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 ... uh, like ... bad? Especially if you are entrapping a minor?

  • over reaction (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Suburbanpride ( 755823 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:04PM (#9270124)
    I think speeding is a lot worse than sharing files. whats the fine for speeding in italy? i bet its a lot less than $1000 and 6 months in prison. extreme penalties will only drive the shares underground it wont stop them.
    • Re:over reaction (Score:2, Informative)

      by turambar386 ( 254373 )
      What country are you from? I'm willing to bet that the potential fines for the illegal trading of copyrighted material are MUCH higher than the fines for speeding in just about any nation on the planet, with the possible exception of Finland.
    • The fine isn't what deters me from speeding...

      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 probab
    • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 2004 @04:01PM (#9270819)
      I think speeding is a lot worse than sharing files

      This is because you don't see the big picture. Speeding just kills or injures a few people now and then. File sharing, however, prevents the very rich from continuing to become a lot richer, which is clearly a much more evil offense.

  • GPL violations? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by j-beda ( 85386 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:04PM (#9270128) Homepage
    Since the GPL is a copyright lisence - does this mean that if somone violated the GPL in Italy it could get them thrown in jail?

    And people complain that they are afraid of the viral nature of the GPL - this would really scare them!

  • by Nuclear Elephant ( 700938 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:04PM (#9270130) Homepage
    The Italian parliament yesterday voted in favour of imposing jail sentences of up to three years on anyone caught uploading or downloading unauthorised copyright material to and from the Net.

    People don't download pirated music, computers download pirated music. Everybody calm down, unless you're routing packets by hand, you're safe.
  • by mr_mischief ( 456295 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:05PM (#9270139) Journal
    How long, with computerized production bringing music and movie making power to the desktop like never before and laws like this popping up, will it be before we see free or even Open Source movies.

    I can foresee a possible future with Creative Commons, the GPL, the Free Documentation License, and the BSD license influencing the licensing of droves of hobbyist movies and music. I'm talking much, much more than we see now. Maybe the music and movie companies see this coming. Maybe they want to kill p2p not only because their own work is distributed royalty-free across it, but also because with the software to make competitive products getting better and p2p being a great distribution method, they're afraid of losing market share to upstarts.

    Think of how scared SCO and MS are of Linux.
  • Newspapers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by gr8_phk ( 621180 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:05PM (#9270144)
    Does that mean their government controls what is printed in the newspaper?
  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:08PM (#9270180)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by spiritraveller ( 641174 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:08PM (#9270186)
    from a country that chooses ,a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3034600.st m">its own version of Rupert Murdoch to be the supreme leader.
  • by Timesprout ( 579035 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:08PM (#9270188)
    If they promise to confiscate my windows box and all my MS CD's
  • by Anonymous Coward
    If the jail time and the fine won't deter the fileswappers, certainly the public humiliation in two national newspapers will!
  • by exp(pi*sqrt(163)) ( 613870 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:09PM (#9270199) Journal
    ...with a Prime Minister who makes his money from media companies. Those corrupt Italians! Imagine something like that happened in the US. If the President or Vice President stood to make money from invading Iraq, say, there'd be a hue and cry about it and they'd have no chance of getting away with it.
  • Welcome Italy! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by kannibal_klown ( 531544 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:10PM (#9270216)
    Finally!!!

    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.
  • by Glowing Fish ( 155236 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:11PM (#9270236) Homepage
    The Prime Minister of Italy got his job in large part because he controls something like 90% of the media there.

    I could imagine that along with his general right wing Agenda, Prime Minister Silvio Whats-his-name might want to protect the interests of media companies. Or rather, the media company, since he is the only one.
  • by interiot ( 50685 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:11PM (#9270245) Homepage
    Google Cache has always operated in at least a slightly gray area legally, in that there's undoubtedly unauthorized copyrighted material [paperlined.org] available via the cache that authors wouldn't want there if they knew about it. Google obviously is on the up-and-up, and will remove content from cache [google.com] when specifically requested to. However, with a minimum jail sentance of six months, anything questionable like this may be deemed to risky. Is it possible that Google cache (and anything similarly risky) may be disabled for the .IT section of the internet?
  • by nacturation ( 646836 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (noitarutcan)> on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:12PM (#9270252) Journal
    Now all we need to do is to find some areas where one of the officials who voted to pass this legislation violates this law themselves. Scrutinize everything the Italian government puts out to try and catch them posting material which is copyrighted. Time to make examples of them of how passing such a shitty law will come back to bite them in the ass.
  • by cshark ( 673578 )
    Sounds like they're doing everything but Caining them.

    On the bright side, it doesn't sound like this is anywhere near over.

  • Yet... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by NickRipley ( 142042 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:13PM (#9270265) Homepage Journal
    Did you ever notice how almost any "silver" or manufactured bootleg CD comes from Italy? Their law (unless it's changed lately) is that as long as you pay the artist/publishing company something, it's legal to make any recording for sale.

    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.
  • middle age? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by golgafrincham ( 774723 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:13PM (#9270270) Journal
    as stupid as this new "law" is, but for this one:

    and the revelation of their misdeeds in Italy's two national newspapers, La Repubblica and Corriere della Sera.

    they should be kicked out of the european union instantly. i mean, sorry, but this is a punishment from the middle age.
  • by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:14PM (#9270277) Homepage Journal
    ... if consumers were getting a fair shake in the first place. The music industry can sell me an overpriced album without showing me what is in it, but I don't get a satisfaction guaranteed return policy. Therefore, the industry has no economic incentive to strive to make better content.

    Level the playing field before punishing consumers for being the only competitor this industry has.
  • by The Fanta Menace ( 607612 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:14PM (#9270283) Homepage
    ...needs someone to help them break this law, I am more than willing to assist.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:16PM (#9270300)
    I'm worried about how the international community is going to react to this law; I could easily see the XXAA's performing "research studies" that show that this form of legislation is effective and desirable, and should be used elsewhere.

    As I see it, one of the most effective ways to counter this is to use once again raise the technological bar of P2P technologies. A system where the user does not know or control what content is stored on their PC (a la Freenet) would eliminate the ability of the legal system to charge an individual for distribution. In order for this to occur, anonymous software systems need to be made more effective and easier to use for the average user.

    I'm sure many people will suggest that I just want to make sure things are easy to steal. The honest answer is that I don't; the same technology used to ensure illicit communications are caught could just as easily be used against legal but undesirable communications. The increased availability of raw information has revolutionized our society (just look at the Abu Gharaib scandal; that could not have happened a decade ago), and any attempts to restrict that movement must be opposed or countered.
  • by AlexanderYoshi ( 750291 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:23PM (#9270379)
    I guess its time to tell my brother he has to delete all of that Italian porn from his computer, unless he can find those girl's written consent ;)

    -Alex

  • by mobiux ( 118006 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:23PM (#9270388)
    are we bound to accept copyright laws from other countries? I know the US government tries to push their restrictions on less strict countries.

    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.
  • by bigberk ( 547360 ) <bigberk@users.pc9.org> on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:25PM (#9270416)
    This is the kind of lunatic laws you get when the recording industry lobbies government [ifpi.org] (hey, they got the cash!). Even in dear old Canada, where the courts protect our privacy through ISPs and uphold our right to freely copy media we own, the recording industry is lobbying government to change Canadian copyright law. If our government ratifies WIPO [parl.gc.ca], as the industry is pushing them to do, we'll lose many of the media rights we enjoy (this will bring the DMCA into Canada). Please, visit our Digital Copyright Canada [digital-copyright.ca] site, sign the Petition for Users' rights, and make digital freedom an election issue!
  • 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.

  • by Colin Smith ( 2679 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:31PM (#9270465)
    Newspapers, TV, radio, film it isn't at all surprising that he thinks copyright infringment should be considered a criminal act rather than a civil one.

    Oh, and he's being prosecuted for attempting to bribe a judge. He had a law passed which would give him immunity from prosecution while he was in office. It has since been overturned.

    Did I forget to mention that he's the Prime Minister of Italy?

  • by sabat ( 23293 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:42PM (#9270605) Journal

    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?
  • Overheard (Score:3, Insightful)

    by solarlux ( 610904 ) <noplasma@[ ]oo.com ['yah' in gap]> on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:53PM (#9270741)
    (overheard outside a jail-cell)

    Inmate 1: "So what are you in here for?"

    Inmate 2: "I was the CEO of a large media conglomerate. I masterminded a scandal which cheated millions of people out of their retirement servings. So I've gotta serve three years here in the slammer. And you?"

    Inmate 1: "My little brother used my computer to download Crossroads. He's always had a crush on Britney Spears. Of course it was my application of eMule and I had no way to prove it wasn't me. The judge was having a bad day and nailed me with three years.

    Inmate 2: "Damn...."
  • mediocracy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @03:58PM (#9270788) Homepage Journal
    Italy's government is headed by its monopoly satellite media mogul, Silvio Berlusconi. Copyright infringement is henceforth a political crime. The WTO will shortly be synchronized with the Italian laws, then the US with the WTO, so the US will be offering these innovative government reforms soon enough.
  • by base_chakra ( 230686 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @05:57PM (#9271946)
    Italy Approves Jail for P2P Users

    At first glance I wondered if this headline meant that Italy approved a special, separate prison for P2P users. Which would be kinda cool in a way... the P2P jails would be the ones where prisoners are constantly trading single cigarettes and stolen pudding.
  • Jurisdiction (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dirtside ( 91468 ) on Thursday May 27, 2004 @06:41PM (#9272279) Journal
    I've recently begun to wonder why patent and trademark infringement lawsuits are entirely handled in civil court, but copyright infringement has become a criminal matter. Why shouldn't copyright be handled strictly in civil court, just like patent and trademark?
  • Bad headline (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BillyBlaze ( 746775 ) <tomfelker@gmail.com> on Thursday May 27, 2004 @07:44PM (#9272814)
    Copyright infringement is illegal and generally bad. But P2P is neither illegal nor inherently bad. The headline equates them: that is bad.

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