Copyright Law

Italian Prosecutor Targets the Pirate Bay

By soulxtc

Feels empowered following guilty verdict in Sweden.

Swedish BitTorrent tracker site the Pirate Bay is currently being investigated by Giancarlo Mancusi, a public prosecutor in the north Italian town of Bergamo, over accusations that the site facilitates copyright infringement, the same charges it was recently found guilty of in Sweden, and for which the site’s four founders were sentenced to a year in prison, and ordered to pay 30 million kronor ($3.6 million USD) in damages.

Many copyright holders say the victory has emboldened them to pursue similar charges elsewhere.

"We see the chances of a trial in Italy reaching the same result as good," said Simona Lavagnini, a lawyer representing the Italian recording industry organization Fimi.

Mancusi is also optimistic.

"The charge is the same as the one in Sweden, so one can be optimistic about obtaining a similar verdict in Italy," Mazza said. "The courts have already confirmed that they have jurisdiction and that Italian law has been violated. The problem is always that of achieving effective enforcement, but it’s becoming increasingly hard for copyright violators to find a safe haven."

The Pirate Bay, on the other hand, finds it odd that it’s being charged in Italy - again - considering it’s a country they’ve never been two, nor is any physical presence of the site located.

"He was amazed to discover that he was subject to criminal proceedings in Italy, a country that he has never visited and where no servers associated with The Pirate Bay are located," said Giovanni Battista Gallus, lawyer for co-founder Peter Sunde.

Gallus also notes that society shouldn’t outlaw BitTorrent tracker sites simply because they may contain some copyrighted material that may be shared illegally.

"I continue to maintain that no punishable activity has taken place in Italy," he added. "We can’t allow the criminalization of an instrument such as torrent tracking, which can be employed for perfectly legal uses."

The Pirate Bay has always maintained that it hosts torrent trackers for as much, if not more than, noncopyrighted material as it does copyrighted.

Last August Mancusi successfully convinced a judge to block the Pirate Bay, but the ban was lifted two months later on appeal. That verdict is scheduled to be heard by Italy’s top appeal court, the Court of Cassation, this September.

Stay tuned.

jared@zeroapid.com

Full post as published by ZeroPaid on May 05, 2009 (boomark / email).