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Following the completion of the highly debated consultation concerning Italian regulations governing the liability of Internet Service Providers for copyright breaches, the Italian Communications Authority (AGCOM) has issued a draft of the new regulations.
Important changes have been implemented compared to the previous draft subject of the consultation including:
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the provisions allowing the AGCOM to order the blocking/filtering of the access by Italian to illegal websites have been removed;
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the challenging proceeding before the AGCOM has become always a mere alternative to the court proceeding;
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the timeframe of the notice and take down proceeding – based on the model of the DMCA – has been extended to avoid the risk of summary judgments by the AGCOM.
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ISPs will have a 4 days period to remove the challenged material following the notice from the right holder. If no removal occurs within such timeframe, the right holder can send a notice to the AGCOM within the following 7 days;
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if the AGCOM believes that the notice from the right holder is grounded it will first check whether the ISP intends to spontanously comply with the request of removal, if this does not occur, the AGCOM board can order to Italian website managers the removal of the challenged material and to audiovisual service providers the blocking of the transmission of the challenged material;
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in case of foreign websites, the AGCOM can adopt a 3 steps proceeding with an initial warning followed by the request of removal of the challenged material and the final notification to the judicial authorities.
The new draft has adopted some of the comments raised by the consultation, but most importantly – maybe because of the considerable negative publicity that the prior draft had received – the new draft is subject to an additional 60 days consultation!
Operators will have a new opportunity to make the AGCOM hear their voice and – as usual – feel free to contact me, Giulio Coraggio, if you want more details on the above or want to join the consultation.
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