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)
Re:Email is copyrighted... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Email is copyrighted... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Email is copyrighted... (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Re:Publishing v. private communications (Score:5, Insightful)
and when people "publish" it in an expose, they get to go to jail.
watch...it'll happen.
Bogus arguments 101 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Publishing v. private communications (Score:5, Funny)
PM Berlusconi controls 90% of the media (Score:4, Informative)
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
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.
Re:Publishing v. private communications (Score:3, Insightful)
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
We draw lines with precedents (Score:5, Insightful)
There are no perfectly clean lines in life. Trying to demand that we have perfectly clean laws before we can exist is absurd. To a large extent, everything depends on intent.
If I dropped a piano from a fifth floor window and if falls on a passerby, that is manslaughter. If I wait for the ex to walk by, aim and cut the cord...it is murder. The difference between the two has very little to do with either the shape of the piano or the laws of gravity. The difference is intent, and we need courts to decide on intent. Generally intent is clear. Pointing a gun at a person and pulling a trigger is generally a good sign of intent of murder (but it could just mean stupidity). Under cooking eggs benedict and causing a person to die from food poisoning is more indicative of manslaughter, but if the courts find out I purposefully cultured salmonella for the eggs...then I am a murderer.
Emailing copies of an ebook to friends (so they won't have to pay for the book), there is clear intent on doing the copyright holder wrong.
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: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:Since this is Italy... (Score:3, Funny)
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)
This seems right at home (Score:2, Funny)
Re:This seems right at home (Score:4, Insightful)
At least the trains will run on time. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:At least the trains will run on time. (Score:5, Informative)
My aren't you quick on the uptake [bbc.co.uk].
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:At least the trains will run on time. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:At least the trains will run on time. (Score:4, Informative)
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/berlusc
Tyrannical media control law? Just do the math.
Re:At least the trains will run on time. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:At least the trains will run on time. (Score:3, Interesting)
Contrary to popular belief,
Re:At least the trains will run on time. (Score:4, Insightful)
Somewhere in Italy, the concept of "the punishment should fit the crime" just took a dump.
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.
Which is worse? (Score:2)
Italian law? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Italian law? (Score:2)
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?
Re:Italian law? (Score:3, Informative)
You're pretty naive, you know that?
Re:Italian law? (Score:2)
Re:Italian law? (Score:2)
Re:Italian law? (Score:2, Informative)
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
It's not so different from "John Lists" (Score:2)
I suppose it stopped when someone too high up was found on one of the lists.
Re:Italian law? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Italian law? (Score:2)
At the very least, it'll make it easier for the hookers to find their way.
Italian bootlegs (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyone care to comment on this or clear it up?
Cheers,
Vic
Re:Italian bootlegs (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re:Italian bootlegs (Score:3, Insightful)
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
I think it wrong to illegally copy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Enforce it. (Score:5, Insightful)
If this law is really so draconian as the discription implies (this is
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)
Nothing has changed.
Re:Enforce it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Enforce it. (Score:3, Informative)
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
Re:Enforce it. (Score:3, Informative)
Forty-eight states currently have some form of restriction on the right of felons to vote. The exceptions are Maine and Vermont, which even permit inmates to vote. Thirty-three states disenfranchise felons who are on parole. Eight states deny felons the right to vote for life.
I had thought most states allowed felons to vote and only a few still denied it. Guess I was wrong.
Re:Enforce it. (Score:5, Insightful)
We have the highest prison population on Earth and not nearly the population of many other countries. That alone should tell us something is desperately wrong with the system. Yet people escalate further and create "expedited executions" in Texas and Florida. Rather than lock them up and rehabilitate them, we now just write them off entirely and kill them. How great! It's wrong for one man to kill another man but somehow right when 2 million kill one.
Re:Enforce it. (Score:3)
Large government contractors make lots of money off building and running prisons.
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.
Re:Enforce it. (Score:3, Informative)
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
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.
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]
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:RIAA Attacks Single Mom (Score:5, Insightful)
over reaction (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:over reaction (Score:2, Informative)
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 probab
Shows what you know (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
And people complain that they are afraid of the viral nature of the GPL - this would really scare them!
Re:GPL violations? (Score:2)
Re:GPL violations? (Score:3, Interesting)
Best way to get this law taken off the books? Start strictly enforcing it against software companies.
But officer... (Score:5, Funny)
People don't download pirated music, computers download pirated music. Everybody calm down, unless you're routing packets by hand, you're safe.
Open-source music and movies? (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
Re:Newspapers (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Newspapers (Score:5, Informative)
All of the Italian media is under direct government control, mostly because it is controlled by prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, who owns all the media. Criticism of the government, and criticism of Berlusconi in particular, by the media, is not tolerated.
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
we should expect this... (Score:3, Informative)
I'll risk it (Score:3, Funny)
Ultimate Deterrment (Score:2, Funny)
I guess you expect that... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Does this have something to do with Silvio? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Google Cache going away? (Score:5, Interesting)
Scouring for test cases (Score:4, Interesting)
Ouch (Score:2)
On the bright side, it doesn't sound like this is anywhere near over.
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.
middle age? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
I'd be less bothered by this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Level the playing field before punishing consumers for being the only competitor this industry has.
If anyone... (Score:3, Funny)
The Need for Effective Anonymous P2P (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
I guess its time.... (Score:5, Funny)
-Alex
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.
Lunacy - cycle repeats in every country (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Berlusconi is a media baron. (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
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?
Overheard (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
Special Jail for P2P Users? (Score:4, Funny)
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)
Bad headline (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:yes thats right boys and girls (Score:2)
Re:yes thats right boys and girls (Score:2)
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: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.
Re:How exactly is this a bad thing? (Score:3)