The broad anti-piracy measures were requested by small independent Italian movie distributor Eyemoon Pictures. The company complained that the sites in question distributed two films, “The Congress” and “Fruitvale Station,” before they were released in Italian cinemas.

Several sites affected by the blockade decided to appeal the order, and not without success. Fulvio Sarzana, who acts as lawyer for several of the accused sites including Mega, told TorrentFreak that the sites in question can now be accessed again.

The lawyer took up the case with the local Prosecutor, and pointed out that the blockades are overbroad. Instead of blocking access to a single file it makes entire sites unreachable.

In addition, Sarzana noted that the measures are not needed as the file-hosting sites have strict takedown policies in place which allow copyright holders to remove infringing content.

The Prosecutor was receptive to these arguments and after a settlement agreement with several of the affected services was reached last month, local ISPs were ordered to lift the blockades.

“For Mega we negotiated a court settlement with the Office of the Prosecutor of Rome, which recognized the legitimacy of Mega’s activities and ordered the removal of the blockade. The same is the case for other hosting services,” Sarzana tells TorrentFreak.

For another site, which prefers not to be named, it was necessary to take the case to the Appeals Court. In common with a similar case earlier this year, the Court held that the blocking order was indeed too broad. As a result this blockade was also lifted.

“The Court held that the ISP blockade of the website was disproportionate because the copyright infringement occurs on individual pages. The entire website can therefore not be blocked for copyright reasons,” Sarzana notes.

The lawyer expects that the Appeals Court ruling will have implications for the Communications Regulatory Authority (AGCOM), which currently has the power to block allegedly infringing sites without a court order.

Considering the recent Appeals Court decision, this procedure may be unconstitutional. This possibility has also been raised by several consumer groups who have asked the court to review AGCOM’s legitimacy.

Last week the Court of Rome referred these complaints to the Constitutional Court. Here it will be examined whether the current procedure violates right to freedom of expression and free speech, among other things.

To be continued.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The site slowly started to rebuild its community and is now getting millions of visitors per month again. At the same time, however, the torrent site is also drawing attention from various copyright holders.

On behalf of Sony, Warner and Universal, Italian anti-piracy group FIMI submitted a complaint against Demonoid to the Communications Regulatory Authority (AGCOM) last month. AGCOM is a regulatory body that has the power to order website blockades without court interference, if sites are deemed to be infringing.

The labels’ complaint listed several tracks by Italian artists including Laura Pausini, Max Pezzali and Vasco Rossi, which were made available on Demonoid. However, instead of ordering blockades for these infringing works, AGCOM has now instructed ISPs to block the entire website.

As a result, Italian Internet subscribers can no longer access Demonoid.

TorrentFreak contacted Fulvio Sarzana, a lawyer specialized in Internet and copyright disputes, who told us that the scope of the preliminary injunction is too broad and disproportional.

“The order, in my opinion, is not proportional. The Court of Rome repeatedly ruled that blocking orders must be directed only at illegal content, and not the whole site,” Sarzana says.

The lawyer refers to a ruling earlier this year, where the Court of Rome recalled a blocking order against the video streaming site Filmakerz.org. The Court argued that partial blocking of a specific URL is preferred over site-wide bans, something that clearly didn’t happen with Demonoid.

“Demonoid would do well to contest the measure which appears to be illegitimate,” Sarzana notes, adding that the AGCOM procedures may be unconstitutional.

This issue has also been raised by several consumer groups who asked the court to review AGCOM’s legitimacy. Earlier this week the Court of Rome referred these complaints to the Constitutional Court. Here it will be examined whether the current procedure violates right to freedom of expression and free speech, among other things.

If AGCOM is indeed deemed to be unconstitutional there’s a good chance that all existing blockades will be lifted. In addition, Sarzana believes that the wrongfully blocked websites may then be entitled to receive compensation for the damages they suffered.

However, until a decision from the Constitutional Court arrives AGCOM will continue to operate normally. FIMI is happy with this decision as well as the new blockades against Demonoid.

“We are extremely satisfied with this new blocking order and also about the outcome of the decision from the administrative Court of Rome on the regulation,” FIMI’s Enzo Mazza tells TorrentFreak.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Many of the big ‘pirate’ sites – The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents, for example – have been blocked for years but now the country seems intent on blacking out sites that are definitely not in the piracy business.

As reported here on Saturday, last week a judge sitting in the Court of Rome ordered local ISPs to block a total of 24 websites including Kim Dotcom’s Mega.co.nz and Russia’s largest email provider, Mail.ru.

The size and importance of Mail.ru in its home country and further afield is noteworthy. It’s the fifth most-visited domain in Russia behind only Yandex, Google and social networking giant vKontakte, of which it owns 51.99%. It’s the 39th busiest site worldwide according to Alexa, servicing in excess of 27 million users per day.

In a statement this morning Mail.ru said it has still not been able to establish the specifics that lead to it being blocked in Italy. Eyemoon Pictures, the complainant in the case, made no attempt to discuss any issues with Mail.ru before heading off to court, the email giant said.

“[Eyemoon Pictures] made no attempt to resolve the situation pretrial,” the company said in a statement.

“No notification of illegal content or requirements to remove copies of [Eyemoon's] films has been addressed to Mail.Ru Group from law enforcement agencies and Italy.”

The company only realized there was a problem when users began complaining of accessibility issues on July 17.

“We learned of the court’s decision from our users, as well as publications in the public domain,” Mail.ru added.

Criticizing the effects of the blockade on its userbase, this morning Mail.ru hit out at Italy for taking action without due consideration.

“We believe that this situation is detrimental to the interests of our users, and clearly illustrates the fact that some national laws in this area does not consider the specifics of the Internet companies and do not provide a clear, transparent process for resolving such conflicts,” the company said.

“There needs to be an active dialogue on the development of international pre-trial procedures for resolving disputes between copyright holders and Internet service providers. Their introduction will improve the position of all parties, including users worldwide,” Mail.ru concludes.

At the time of writing, Mail.ru is still inaccessible in Italy with the company having made no progress towards having the censorship lifted.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Instead of legislating against piracy, the Italian government gave the watchdog the power to deal with infringement, up to and including the removal of infringing content and even the blocking of allegedly copyright-infringing domains.

In May and following complaints from the entertainment industry, AGCOM ordered the blocking of four torrent sites – LimeTorrents, TorrentDownload.ws, Torrentz.pro and TorrentDownloads.me. Just over a month later and yet more sites have fallen victim to its blocking regime.

This time around it’s the turn of Torrent.cd, Torrentvia and TorrentRoom to land on the AGCOM blacklist. None of the sites are large, quite the opposite in fact, but a dig down into their traffic stats reveals why Italy is interested in them.

The largest of the trio, Torrent.cd, has the greatest proportion of its visitors arrive from India, closely followed by the United States. Just a fraction of a percent behind are Italian visitors, making Torrent.cd fairly popular with locals.

In mid 2012, TorrentRoom.com was among the top 5000 sites in the world, but traffic to the site diminished to a near all time low in mid 2013. A recovery in the early part of 2014 reversed the trend for a while, but traffic is currently the worst it has ever been. However, stats from Alexa show that Italian visitors to the site are only outnumbered by those from the United States, again making the site relatively popular with locals.

TorrentVia.com is a very small site indeed with a global Alexa rank of 178,400. Traffic is so low in fact that it’s difficult to obtain stats. That said, Google.it is the site’s second most-popular referrer, something which again reflects local interest.

For now it seems that AGCOM are going after sites that are enjoyed more locally, but that could very well change once the regulator runs out of targets.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

“Italy’s removal from the Special 301 List reflects the significant steps the Government of Italy has taken to address the problem of online piracy, and the continued U.S. commitment to meaningful and sustained engagement with our critical partner Italy,” the USTR said in a special announcement earlier this month.

What Italy had done to deserve these compliments was fairly extraordinary. Instead of legislating to make a piracy crackdown easier or more effective, the government handed AGCOM, the Italian Communications Regulatory Authority, the power to deal with infringement.

Without need for costly and drawn out legal cases and court-ordered injunctions, from March 31, 2014, AGCOM had the power to order the removal of infringing content or the blocking of allegedly copyright-infringing domains. Remember, these are regulations calling the shots – not legislation.

Now, a little over two months since the start of the new system, AGCOM has been flexing its muscles against what many people believed to be the framework’s primary targets – torrent sites.

In four decisions made public this week by AGCOM, LimeTorrents, TorrentDownload.ws, Torrentz.pro and TorrentDownloads.me were all deemed to be infringing and as a result will end up blocked by the country’s ISPs. The decisions, published on AGCOM.it, also reveal who made the complaints and when.

The LimeTorrents case was reported to AGCOM by local anti-piracy group FPM representing Sony Music, Warner Music and Universal Music. In their evidence the labels provided links to torrents that linked to their works. After a review AGCOM agreed that the labels’ complaints were genuine. Attempts to contact LimeTorrents’ owners failed so they were disallowed from involvement in the process.

In conclusion, and “in compliance with the principles of proportionality”, on May 5 Italian ISPs were given just two days to block subscriber access to LimeTorrents. In general terms the complaints against the other sites were similar and featured both music and video focused anti-piracy groups working on behalf of several movie studios. Those sites will also be blocked.

Notable is the streamlined nature of the process. All complaints were filed mid-April and today, less than three weeks later, the blocks should already be in place. Little wonder the USTR is pleased.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The crackdown was the largest enforcement action against copyright-infringing sites in Italy, and local authorities hinted that it wouldn’t be the last.

One of the sites affected by the blockades was Filmakerz.org, a video streaming portal that offers a variety of movies and TV-shows for free. Mainly popular among Italians, the site’s traffic plummeted as a result of the ban.

But while most blocked sites are quick to throw in the towel, Filmakerz.org decided to appeal the case, with success. This week the Court of Appeals overturned the blocking order against the site, ruling that it was too broad.

The panel of judges clarified that each blocking request should specify under what exact URLs copyrighted works are being infringed, instead of submitting a single domain name. Without the exact location of the infringing content, the court can’t verify the validity of the blocking request.

According to Fulvio Sarzana, the lawyer who represented Filmakerz.org, the ruling is a clear blow against the increasing censorship efforts in Italy. Sarzana says that the court specified two important ground rules.

“The first is that the Public Prosecutor must prove the existence of a for-profit motivation to get the blocking order,” the lawyer tells TF.

“The second is that parts of the site that contain legitimate content must not affected. This means that a partial seizure of an individual URL is preferred over the seizure of the entire site,” Sarzana adds.

The ruling comes at a crucial time, a few days after Italy’s independent Electronic Communications Authority (AGCOM) implemented new regulations that would allow foreign sites to be blocked more easily.

“The verdict is important because it shows that the order to block a site should be carefully decided, and is also important in the light of AGCOM rules,” Sarzana told us, adding that the regulation to block entire domains contradicts with European and Italian jurisprudence.

Following the Court of Appeals verdict, local ISPs have been instructed to unblock Filmakerz.org, which is expected to be accessible again soon. It is unclear whether any of the other blocked sites also plan to appeal the blockade, but with the appeal decision in Filmakerz’s favor it might be worth a shot.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Earlier this year AGCOM, Italy’s independent Electronic Communications Authority, drafted new regulations that would allow it to order a domain seizure or ISP blockade of any site that fails to remove infringing content in a timely manner. The process, which has just been voted in by the regulator and will begin in April, has a couple of controversial tricks up its sleeve.

Unlike similar bodies in almost every Western country, AGCOM can not only order this kind of action without obtaining a court order, but obtained its powers to do so through an administrative process that wasn’t heard in Parliament. The scale and nature of the regulation has piqued the interest of IP Kitten, an industry-respected copyright blog that has declared it the most important piece of copyright-related legislation of 2013.

“Probably the most important piece of legislation is not really a law, but rather a regulation: the Regulation on Online Copyright Enforcement by AGCOM,” IP Kitten writes.

“It is important because for the first time in Italy an administrative authority (as is AGCOM) has vested itself with powers (to grant injunctions) which traditionally have fallen within the competence of courts. Overall, the Italian experiment is not only likely to be looked at with either interest or fear by other Member States, but also inform debate around forthcoming review of the InfoSoc and Enforcement Directives.”

Fulvio Sarzana, a lawyer with the Sarzana and Partners law firm, has worked with many sites to lift blocking orders under existing Italian law. He is concerned by the new regulations and how they came to pass.

“AGCOM will order removal without any kind of judicial review. ISPs, consumers, libertarians and experts have vigorously contested AGCOM’s proposal because it could affect freedom of speech as well as business rights. In particular, they challenge the modality whereby the Italian regulator would supervise and tackle copyright infringements on the Internet by way of orders of removal and blocking,” Sarzana told TorrentFreak.

Dissent is also being heard from those in power, both locally and further afield, the lawyer says.

“Various members of the Italian Parliament (including the president of the Chamber Laura Boldrini) have questioned the competence of AGCOM in regulating this matter and observed that only the legislator, not the regulator, should fix limits and guarantees of civil freedoms. The Foreign Affairs Minister Emma Bonino has also criticized the regulator’s initiative,” Sarzana adds, noting that the regulation has also attracted the UN’s attention.

“While visiting Italy to report on the state of freedom of expression in the country, Frank La Rue, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the rights to freedom of opinion and expression, expressed his reservations against the new regulatory framework. La Rue, echoing the words of Italian academics and civil libertarians, noted that ‘all norms regulating constitutional rights, in particular freedom of expression, should be approved by the Parliament’,” he concludes.

The new regulations come into force in April so we won’t have to wait too long to see what the system produces and whether rightsholders decide to take full advantage. At this point that seems very likely indeed.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Many of the world’s leading sites, such as The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents, are already blocked at the ISP level following orders from various courts. However, going to court can be a drawn out affair and rightsholders have always been keen to short-cut the process with something more streamlined.

Thanks to AGCOM, Italy’s independent Electronic Communications Authority, they are well on their way.

Earlier this year AGCOM drafted new regulations that would allow it to order a domain seizure or ISP blockade of any site that fails to remove infringing content in a timely manner. AGCOM’s proposals envisaged a 72-hour window for websites and ISPs to process takedown notices, which is similar to the system currently in place in Russia.

Unlike under the old system, all this would be achieved without a court order. Only adding fuel to the ‘lack of due process’ fire is the fact that AGCOM introduced these rules through an administrative process, without a hearing in Parliament.

Nevertheless, on Thursday the proposals passed by unanimous vote, thereby heralding the introduction of an efficient process for dealing with unauthorized content and for punishing sites beyond Italy’s borders.

After consulting with the European Commission certain requirements for removing content have been adjusted (only working days will be counted) and it was also established that ISPs are not obliged to carry out Deep Packet Inspection. Some other technical details aside, the bulk of the measures remain intact.

“Today marks a new era for Italian culture,” said Marco Polillo, president of Confindustria Cultura Italia.

“We consider this a landmark victory against the pirates of Italian culture and those who support them. Now we can happily work with information and communications technology companies to develop new business models and increase the supply of Italian cultural production.”

Speaking with TorrentFreak, Enzo Mazza, president of Italian anti-piracy group FIMI, says the new mechanism to clamp down on pirate sites will be much better than the old one.

“The system will be very useful in speeding up the blocking of foreign sites,” Mazza explains.

“Italy already has a criminal procedure in place where public prosecutors have ordered the blocking of at least 18 major international rogue sites, but the ordinary criminal procedure can sometimes take months before an order is issued. AGCOM will solve this in a few weeks or less. It’s a very significant improvement.”

Despite many top file-sharing sites already being blocked in Italy, Mazza says there is still room for more and some may even require additional action.

“Any international pirate site is on the list. It’s not a secret that we will focus on any available target. We will review our records and decide what line will be more appropriate regarding a specific target. There are sites that just need to be blocked and sites where a more detailed criminal case will be the best option. AGCOM and criminal actions can be used in parallel,” Mazza concludes.

Once the mechanism gets properly underway in April 2014, Italy will have the toughest anti-piracy regime in Europe. Only time will tell the effect it has on the downloading habits of locals.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The DMCA has a strict set of rules that defines how copyright holders and content providers should deal with pirated content. This works well as long as all parties play by the rules, which is unfortunately not always the case.

The entertainment industries in particular often complain about foreign sites that ignore their takedown requests. While the DMCA provides no remedy against this negligence, a new notice and takedown procedure introduced in Italy will.

AGCOM, Italy’s independent Electronic Communications Authority, has drafted a new regulation that will allow it to order a seizure or ISP blockade of any website that fails to promptly remove copyright infringing content, without a court order.

Under the new rules websites and ISPs will have a 72-hour window to process takedown notices. If they don’t respond appropriately within that time-frame AGCOM will take action. The new regulation is scheduled to be implemented early next year and is currently under review by the European Commission.

The proposal, which shows similarities with SOPA and new anti-piracy legislation in Russia, is meeting resistance from various sides including consumer groups, lawyers, scholars and Internet providers who have launched a petition to curb the plans.

One of the complaints is that the current draft lacks due process, as AGCOM will decide whether a site should be blocked without a court order.

“AGCOM has introduced these rules through an administrative process, without hearing the Italian Parliament and without oversight by a court, as is the case in all other countries,” Fulvio Sarzana, a lawyer with the Sarzana and Partners law firm specializing in Internet and copyright disputes, tells TorrentFreak.

“Websites and ISPs have three days to remove the infringing works or disable access to such content. If they fail to do so AGCOM gives an order to take down the entire site or to prevent access through the IP-address blocking,” Sarzana adds.

Another element of the new regulation causesing concern is that AGCOM can compel local and foreign Internet providers to hand over the personal details of site owners, again without judicial oversight. The telecoms regulator can then share these details with copyright holders who may want to take legal action.

The rightsholders don’t see any problems and welcome the new proposals, as it will help them to deal with rogue pirate sites more efficiently.

“We believe this regulation will improve the anti piracy efforts and speed up enforcement,” Enzo Mazza, president of Italian anti-piracy group FIMI, tells TorrentFreak.

“Traditionally criminal cases are used to block sites, but this fast track will add value to our efforts. Similar regulations are already applied in the area of online gambling and antitrust, where the authorities can block sites with an administrative order,” Mazza adds.

The European Commission is still reviewing AGCOM’s proposal and is expected to hand down a decision by the end of November.

For the time being sites can only be blocked through court orders, which is standard procedure in Italy now. More than a dozen larger torrent sites, including The Pirate Bay and Kickass.to are already blocked, and last week Torrentcrazy.com and Sumotorrent.sx were added to the growing list.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

That victory was short-lived. The Supreme Court subsequently decided that sites such as The Pirate Bay can indeed be blocked on the basis they are engaging in illegal behavior. This decision opened up fresh action against another torrent site, BTjunkie. The public prosecutor described BTJunkie as one of the most prominent havens for pirated media and in April a court ordered all Italian ISPs to block the site.

But of course, legal action takes time and as was shown in the first ruling against The Pirate Bay, sometimes a positive outcome for copyright holders can transform into periods of concern. To avoid such distractions in the future, the Italian government and its telecoms agency have a cunning plan.

Under recent government legislation telecommunications agency AGCOM is now required to adopt measures to deal with sites and content deemed illicit by the entertainment industries. AGCOM want to make that particular job as simple as possible by awarding themselves the most powerful tool available – the ability to remove content and block websites without a single court, judge or legal process getting in the way.

AGCOM will be able to take offending sites and content offline within 48 hours. Sites affected by the measures will have 5 days to lodge an appeal.

Tomorrow, July 6th, AGCOM will vote on the resolution which will grant the agency the controversial powers detailed above. It will do so in the face of intense opposition from many in the Internet community, who see the lack of judicial oversight as a sign that abuses of power and unwarranted censorship will follow. Among the dissenters is free software guru Richard Stallman.

“I believe that this an attempt by copyright owners to skip the legal system to attack sites and services that they consider a threat to their interests,” says Stallman in an interview with Italy’s Espresso.

“The new system, directed by AGCOM rather than by a court with due process, will accelerate decisions against alleged illegal internet content: this is why the copyright industry wants it. But, being a short and quick way, it will probably trample the rights of users.”

Stallman goes on to state that dissenting voices have been wrongfully silenced in the past following spurious claims of copyright infringement, and that under AGCOM’s proposals collateral damage is inevitable.

“I do not think it is possible to avoid censorship against innocent sites. But even if it were possible, it would be wrong. Why would we hinder users who want to share content?”

But does Stallman believe the right to share trumps the rights of the entertainment industries?

“I reject the term ‘copyright protection’ associated with what the industry is doing now,” Stallman explains.

“Copyright should serve to protect the art and artists. The current system, however, is only in the interests of publishers and delivers only crumbs to almost all of the artists. I propose a system to fund artists directly, based on their popularity, with taxes to give fair compensation [such as from a blank media levy].”

Various campaigns are underway to protest AGCOM’s proposals. The activists of Anonymous are taking the usual direct action by way of ‘Operation Italian Internet Freedom’ and a DDoS on the currently unavailable AGCOM website.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.