[A2k] IP-Watch: Year Ahead Copyright 2010: Between An Enforcement 'Gold Standard' and Stronger Limitations

[Claude Almansi]

On Wed, Feb 3, 2010 at 8:34 PM, Jeffrey A. Williams
<jwkckid1@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> Claude and all,
>
> =C2=A0Given the level of corruption within the Italian government
> I cannot assume reasonably that the legislation to which you
> refer will be adaquately enforced if enforced at all.

I wish I could share your blithe optimism, Jeffrey.  But when this
present Italian government wants to control info, it can be very
efficient. In 2008, Historian Carlo Ruta was condemned by the Modica
court for "clandestine press",  for having blogged about the mafia.
See, in English:  "How an Italian judge made the internet illegal" by
John Ozimek, The Register, Sept. 26, 2008
<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/26/italian_law_kills_blog/>.
And if you read Italian, see Manlio Cammarata's analysis of the legal
background of this condemnation, in ""Stampa clandestina": una
sentenza inaccettabile", Sept. 9, 2008
<http://www.mcreporter.info/stampa/c_ruta2.htm>.

And in the case of the present decree about multimedia services, the
present prime minister Silvio Berlusconi also controls the commercial
TV broadcaster Mediaset, which sued Google for copyright infringing
videos uploaded to YouTube.
See" Mediaset Sues Google, YouTube, Seeking EU500 Million (Update2)"
by Chiara Remondini. Bloomberg.com,  July 30, 2008
<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?sid=3DaYyj.ATOyYDs&pid=3D20601087>
and, about Mediaset-YouTube-present decree on multimedia services:
"Berlusconi vs. Google: Will Italy Censor YouTube?" by Jeff Israely.
Time, Jan. 22, 2010
<http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1955569,00.html>.

Roberto Ellero, the founder of the Webmultimediale project, just
transferred the registration and editorial responsibility of its
Webmultimediale.org site to me, as I am Swiss and live in Switzerland,
lest the decree forces him to shut it down: in fact, the use of video
in Webmultimediale.org is all but incidental, as the purpose of the
project is to explore new forms of creativity that accessibility
guidelines for video can incite.

The paradox is that Roberto has been mandated by the Observatory for
the accessibility of the (Italian) public administration's web sites
of the Italian government to prepare a series of tutorials about video
accessibility. The first one,
<http://www.accessibile.gov.it/esempiguide/accessibilita-e-qualita-dei-cont=
enuti-audiovisivi/>,
features an embedded YouTube video (captioned in Italian and English).
So if the decree passes and is used by the govt to block YouTube in
Italy, the tutorial will become unusable for the web masters of the
Italian public administration.

Best

Claude