[A2k] Italian Court: Downloading Music, Movies and Software OK if Not Profit-Motivated

[Jeff Williams]

All,

 This is really rich...

See: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16756121/

"(22 January 2007)
An Italian court has ruled that downloading is permissible if it is not
motivated by profit.  The ruling overturns the convictions of two former

students who had set up a peer-to-peer network in 1994.  Analysts
observed that while downloading may no longer be illegal, the ruling
does not decriminalize copyright violations."

Notes of interest related:

If downloading is motivated by avoiding paying for a product, that
seems profit motivated to me. When I shoplift, I can get arrested
even if they can't prove I intended to resell what I stole.

I hope the Italian judges wouldn't mind if someone "borrowed" their
stuff. As long as it's not profit-motivated, it's OK, right?

Now, things are moving very fast on the intellectual property
rights front in Europe, but I have to wonder if they truly understand
the genie is not going back in the bottle one they let him out. Earlier
Grefer reported
http://www.lexexakt.de/eartikel.php?datname=neues/message0133.xml

On January 2, 2007 NewsBites carried a story on a landmark decision in
France limiting the rights of copyright holders to track down pirates:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/12/21/business/privacy.php
And Peter Giannoulis sent me this link saying that Pirates Cove wants
to buy their own island so they can serve up copyrighted goods with
impunity:
http://www.thelocal.se/6076/20070112/

Regards,

--
Jeffrey A. Williams
Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 134k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
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very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

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