Italy Approves Jail for P2P Users

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."

FP

[Anonymous Coward]

FP - I guess everyone else is deleting their Shared Folders :)

This seems right at home

[Anonymous Coward]

From the country that gave us the mafia.

Re:Email is copyrighted...

[Random Web Developer]

Maybe we should include footers in the line of "I allow any recipient of this email to forward it without my written conscent".

But officer...

[Nuclear Elephant]

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.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

I'll risk it

[Timesprout]

If they promise to confiscate my windows box and all my MS CD's

Ultimate Deterrment

[Anonymous Coward]

If the jail time and the fine won't deter the fileswappers, certainly the public humiliation in two national newspapers will!

I guess you expect that...

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

...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.

Re:Email is copyrighted...

[Vihai]

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 :)

If anyone...

[The Fanta Menace]

...needs someone to help them break this law, I am more than willing to assist.

Re:But officer...

[Anonymous Coward]

If they put my computer in jail, after 3 years it'll be of no use at all... damn Moore's Law...

How do you know if you've been caught...

[Rude Turnip]

You'll wake up with the head of the Napster mascot next to you in bed.

I guess its time....

[AlexanderYoshi]

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

5 million italians in jail

[Katalyzt]

little did they realize that when they logged into that Italian web site there was a copyright image on the page without the the permission of the copyright holder. time to build a LOT more jails eh Italy?

You guys don't understand

[Anonymous Coward]

In Italy, criminal offence definitions and stated penalties cannot be directly compared to their US counterparts. To understand how this law is going to be enforced, use the conversion coefficients below by taking the US figure and multiply it by the coefficient:

Will anyone will ever be charged with this violation: .05
Will anyone charged with this crime ever spend time in jail: .001
Will any law enforcement agency systematically seek to detect violations: .00001
Number of people who'll be deterred from using P2P as a result of this law: .0001

Re:Publishing v. private communications

[br0ck]

I'm going to change my name to a copyrighted haiku. Then the two Italian newspapers won't be able to publish my name online without facing criminal charges themselves. ;)

Re:Italian law?

[SlamMan]

As punishment, or was that an advertisement?

What is that sound?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I hear the RIAA shedding a tear of joy. It's just so beautiful.

Re:Since this is Italy...

[EverDense]

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"

Special Jail for P2P Users?

[base_chakra]

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.