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Fapav, the Italian Federation Against Audiovideo Piracy, performed through a specialized agency, CoPeerRight Agency, an investigation through which it discovered hundreds of thousands of Telecom Italia (the Italian telephone incumbent) users that had performed 2.5 millions illegal downloads of nine films. However, unfortunately for Fapav, it had been able to identify only the IP address of such users and therefore requested – before the Court of Rome – Telecom Italia to disclose the details of the users connected to such IP addresses so that their conduct could be challenged before judicial authorities and to block the access by Italian residents to some peer to peer websites.
The Court of Rome held that only judicial authorities can order Telecom Italia to perform such activities. Moreover, on the basis of the hosting providers liability exemption prescribed by the EU E-Commerce Directive, Telecom Italia was found not to be liable for the unlawful conduct performed by its users. The company is only obliged to forward to judicial authorities the challenging letters received by copyright holders.
The lesson deriving from this court decision is that copyright holders and their associations cannot autonomously decide the measures that ISPs have to adopt against piracy, but such activities are reserved to judicial authorities. Interests of copyright holders have to be protected, but such protection has to be managed by the competent authorities.
Do you need more information about the above? Feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio.
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