Berlusconi’s party proposes ‘one strike out’ bill to fight intellectual property infringement

In Italy a bill was submitted to protect copyright. Unlike other countries where they have a ‘three strike’ policy, the bill proposes a strict 'one strike out' policy. This means that internet providers close off internet access when copyright holders inform them on violations of copyrights, patents or trademarks by internet users.
 
The proposal includes the following points:
1.    Closing the internet access of users for violation of copyright, patents or trademarks;
2.    ISPs are required to work on a blacklist of suspects in such violations. The persons on this list may not have internet access;
3.    ISPs should place preventive filters against copyright infringement. The providers may not advertise on sites that link to sites that contain infringing files.

At the moment, ATCOM, the Italian telecom authority, is responsible for reviewing complaints about illegal content on the internet. The Bill proposes reasigning this task to the ISPs.

The bill was submitted by party members of Berlusconi’s ‘People of Liberty’ party and is currently awaiting approval by the House of Representatives. The bill seems in conflict with European legislation. The European Commission announced that shutting down internet access without the intervention of a judge could be a violation of the right to have free access to information.

It will be interesting to see whether the Italian House of Representatives will approve the proposed bill. Perhaps the European Commission will interfere in the matter since the bill conflicts with current EU regulations.

We’ll keep you posted on news about this controversial bill.

You can read the bill here (in Italian)

Reference: Webwereld

By: Karen Groen