'Pirate' Movie Streaming Sites Declared Legal By Italian Court (torrentfreak.com) 48
A Court of Appeal in Rome has overturned a 600,000 euro ruling against four unlicensed sites that offered streaming movies to the public. From a report: When it comes to passing judgment on so-called 'pirate' sites, Italy has more experience than most around Europe. Courts have passed down many decisions against unlicensed sites which have seen hundreds blocked by ISPs. Today, however, news coming out of the country suggests that the parameters of what defines a pirate site may not be so loosely interpreted in future. It began in 2015 when the operator of four sites that linked to pirated movies was found guilty of copyright infringement by a local court and ordered to pay more almost 600,000 in fines and costs. As a result, filmakers.biz, filmaker.me, filmakerz.org, and cineteka.org all shutdown but in the background, an appeal was filed. The appeal was heard by the Rome Court of Appeal in February and now, through lawyer Fulvio Sarzana who defended the sites' operator, we hear of a particularly interesting ruling. "The Court ruled that the indication of links does not qualify as making direct disposal of files protected by copyright law," Sarzana told TF in an email.
It won't last (Score:1)
The various *AA lobby groups won't let this stand.
You'd think they'd bought enough politicians worldwide to ensure rulings like this couldn't happen.
Re: It won't last (Score:1)
It probably won't last, but it is correct in that linking to a torrent (mostly magnet links) does not constitute copyright infringment.
The law was the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
IMO, if a very large portion of a population does an action which is technically illegal, but no one considers it wrong, then clearly it should not be illegal.
Will allowing piracy mean that music and movies will disappear? No, of course not.
It just means that shit, mass produced movies and music, designed purely to make money "may" disappear. There will always be people who do a thing just for the thing. Art for the love of art and not to become rich.
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There might be a difference between thinking and acting. And if >50% of you populace act in a way that is considered illegal you should rethink the law.
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Why wouldn't you tax the people with the money? Do you try to get blood from a stone? Water from the desert?
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Re:The law was the problem (Score:5, Informative)
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IMO, if a very large portion of a population does an action which is technically illegal, but no one considers it wrong, then clearly it should not be illegal.
Ah. I see you are not a lawyer. Think about speeding. If everyone drives at 100 miles an hour shouldn't the speed limit be 100 miles an hour? Laws are made to protect people, and in this case the people being protected are the movie producers.
Will allowing piracy mean that music and movies will disappear? No, of course not.
Will allowing people to drive at 100 MPH mean people will get where they want to go faster? Of course it does. That's not the point. The point is Will People Be Harmed? In both cases the answer is yes.
It just means that shit, mass produced movies and music, designed pu
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I find that in human history, one hundred percent of the time that someone says "art for the love of art and not to become rich", that they are about to rip off an artist.
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very large portion of a population
This is your problem. We're redefining "population" to mean "big companies." In the same way that the Romans only cared about people who owned land (well, men who owned land,) we're running headlong into only caring only about people who run giant companies.
I suppose we're one step up on the Romans though -- we treat women as 82% of a person instead of 0%.
My thinking on the issue... (Score:4, Insightful)
I should be paid for and own that which I create. You? Not so much.
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Most people don't deny that.
What we get annoyed with is when some faceless company you sold your rights to for a (relative) pittance wants to get paid for what you created 70+ years after your death.
And as it stands, DRM'd works can technically never be released into the public domain even after their copyright expires unless someone with an unencrypted original decides to release it, because decrypting it is illegal under the DMCA.
It's an open question whether or not someone (illegally) breaking the DRM an
Common sense victory (Score:5, Insightful)
Linking is the core idea of the internet. To kill it means to kill the internet as it exists.
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Bad headline. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: Streaming Sites Illegal, Not Links to Them (Score:2)
I am thinking in particular of 123moviesfree.whateverthetldtheyhavetodayis
They live behind Cloudflare and presumably pay money to them for the bandwidth to stream movies illegally.
Also things like animeland.tv that do the same.
I must admit I use these things and often it's stuff that I have access to but which doesn't work. For instance I subscribed to Funimation's site because my daughter loves anime. But the site is so slow that the movies are unwatchable. I guess since the same stuff is available ille
I had no idea it was illegal (Score:2)
Arr (Score:2)
Pirate Movies (Score:1)
Some good news (Score:1)
Re: Some good news (Score:1)