Italy wants citizens to officially apply to upload YouTube videos | Hacker News Reader

Italy wants citizens to officially apply to upload YouTube videos

thestandard.com

50 pointsilamont32 comments

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Some Italian guy posted a discriminatory video on Youtube Italy, four top Google Executives now have arrest warrants in Italy, and cannot be anywhere in the EU (due to reciprocal extradition treaties). The Head of Google Video Europe moved to Google UK to head Consumer Marketing in consequence, cannot travel anywhere within the EU at this time, and who knows for how much longer?

References:

[1] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/02/google-executives-f... [2] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/technology/17google.html?_...

UK is a member of the EU.

For the UK it depends whether the warrant was EU-wide or just Italian. If it was Italian, they can get anyone in mainland Europe very easily. However, IIRC, this is due to the Schengen area and the lack of borders. As the UK kind of has a border issue, being an island and all, it's hard to apply the Schengen laws.

UK is not a part of Schengen area, so it is not just being island and all.

This article seems to be saying something slightly different:

http://www.repubblica.it/tecnologia/2010/01/15/news/decreto_...

Basically it makes video services like Youtube responsible for their contents, which is still bad, but is certainly not "individuals must apply to the government to upload videos".

So I think it's either a bad translation or someone playing fast and loose with the actual facts in order to create some traffic.

There's another article on Repubblica that describes the proposed decree in more detail.

http://www.repubblica.it/tecnologia/2010/01/14/news/decreto_...

In the last paragraph, it says that the rules for tv broadcasting would be applied to websites that provide video (meaning they would be subject to governmental approval).

Yes, the websites would come under the authority of the government. That's plenty bad, but what the original article in English says is:

> New rules to be introduced by government decree will require people who upload videos onto the Internet to obtain authorization

That is wrong. What this law says is that content providers are directly responsible for what users publish or upload. The reason to this decree is that one year ago Mediaset (Berlusconi's TV group) sued youtube for publishing a lot of copyrighted material and asked for 0.5 Billions ( see http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/italian_tv_company_medi... or google "mediaset yotube").

If this new bill will pass (and it will) then youtube will be deemed responsible for copyright infringement. This has nothing to do with users asking for authorization.

I think there is some slight sense in amongst this, if only slight.

(Assuming we can drop any argument of copyright being right/wrong for the moment.. for the record I believe it is broken)

It makes sense that sites like Youtube (who after all are actually the ones making most of the money here!) are given some of the responsibility for making sure whatever rules we insist on are not broken.

As I read it this law goes too far; but I think it is more a misguided move in the roughly right direction more than anything else. If we can get a really serious revision of what copyright means (this is important, and I think it is coming if slowly - but it has to be done next I think for the rest to work) and force the content hosts to take some culpability for whatever rules we eventually decide on then I think things would be on the right track.

edit: Im not shocked at the downvote: but Im interested in hearing counter arguments / what specifically seems illogical?

Why is it Google's responsibility to become the Internet Police? Is Italy going to pay for those policing costs? Would you be happy if your government press ganged you into police service without compensation?

Lets call this for what it really is. This isn't about copyright. This is about dismantling a free media system which competes with a corrupt Italian government's ability to control public opinion.

As I said this kind of thing goes way too far. But it would be nice to see server providers realising they also have to make reasonable effort to prevent abuse of their own system. Especially if they make money from it.

Not related to the original article, but look here:

* [...] si aumentano per Mediaset (il tetto per gli spot sulle pay tv passa dal 18 al 12 per cento nel 2012, per Mediaset sale dal 6 al 12 per cento, ndr). [...] *

Basically it says that most tv channels have more limited advertising concentration than Mediaset (now from 6% to 12%), now Mediaset has a flat 12% adv concentration. Wow, now this is an ad hoc decree.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is an example of why I left my country back in 2003.

'Tis an unweeded garden, That Grows to seed; Things rank and gross in nature Possess it merely.

I would assume this would mean that any internet startup in Italy might want to move. Who knows what other types of content will get hit.

Rephrase this as "Berlusconi government composed of stupid ministers" wants to officially apply ...

As part of Italy really understand how stupid is this, and is just praying to see this unqualified junk to go away from our government.

Also don't worry anyway as our laws are rarely applied. For instance we had for some time, a few years ago, a law that "forced" every web site owner to print the content in A4 paper and sent it to some government address. Not sure if I should smile or cry.

The decree was also condemned by Articolo 21, an organization dedicated to the defense of freedom of speech as enshrined in article 21 of the Italian constitution.

So what are the first 20 dedicated to?

Fundamental principles, other rights: http://www.senato.it/documenti/repository/istituzione/costit... [pdf]

The freedom of speech article is the ninth of the rights. A bit late as constitutions go (USA: first, Germany: fifth) but pretty consistent with many Europeans’ views on freedom of speech. In many European states free speech is not the same sort of fundamental right as it is in the US. Important, sure, but not quite as.

> The freedom of speech article is the ninth of the rights. A bit late as constitutions go (USA: first, Germany: fifth) but pretty consistent with many Europeans’ views on freedom of speech. In many European states free speech is not the same sort of fundamental right as it is in the US. Important, sure, but not quite as.

In defense of Germany: In the US rights come as amendments. The German constitution starts out with the human (and civil) rights at the very beginning. (Yes, someone wanted to distance themself from the Nazis.)

If you want to get technical about the US constitution the constitution merely enumerates SOME of the rights that exist, it certainly does not grant them, the ones listed are simply not disputed (what the right entails certainly is). The US constitution should really be viewed more as enumerating the rights of the government, as all rights not explicitly granted FROM the people TO the US gov't vest with the states or the people.

The Federal Gov't actually gets most of it's power in legal theory from a serious abuse of the interstate commerce clause.

You'll notice that the US constitution doesn't actually grant a right of free speech, it prevents congress making laws abridging the freedom.

Well. Yes it does. Sure it does.

You may not share that opinion, but the way the court sees it counts, not the way you see it. A constitution is more than a piece of paper.

Please pardon my double-post. The mobile broadband dongle gives a very spotty connection.

It’s about the order of the fundamental rights, not so much where they are in the constitution.

Well, considering that the US bill of rights is freaking 158 years older than the German constitution, it wins always, anyway. Never mind the order :)

(Full disclaimer: I’m German and quite like our constitution. Just not so much when it comes to free speech. The article and how it’s been interpreted by the constitutional court is quite good, but I’m quite a fan of US style freedom of speech.)

I've been told by Germans, none of whom were law enforcement or lawyers that calling someone an asshole or sticking up your middle finger is a finable offense. It's well known that publishing Nazi propaganda, denying the holocaust and the like are illegal. It seems to me that free speech is less than fundamental in Germany.

The US has a less than perfect record on the issue as well, with obscenity laws and the like.

The US has a less than perfect record on the issue as well, with obscenity laws and the like.

To be fair, these laws have been consistently struck down by the Supreme Court.

That doesn't stop the government from continually passing similar laws and prosecuting people, however: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_of_America_v._Ext...

The real problem here is not with obscenity, though, but the concept of plea bargains. How many people will end up in prison because of unconstitutional laws before someone stands up against the oppressive regime?

To be fair, these laws have been consistently struck down by the Supreme Court.

I wish that were completely true. Unfortunately, it's not quite the case: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_test

I agree that the Supreme Court got this completely wrong.

> I've been told by Germans, none of whom were law enforcement or lawyers that calling someone an asshole or sticking up your middle finger is a finable offense.

I can confirm this for offending a police officer or similar. But I haven't heard of a case where someone got fined for offending a `normal' private person. (I do not know whether the law covers this as well.)

Have a look:

http://www.senato.it/documenti/repository/istituzione/costit...

In a satellite channel (broadcast in english by the Italian) I had once watched a program where it was reported that the chief cameraman in Italian parliament had a salary more than (or in a comparable level as) the Prime Minister! It was all demonstrated by the numbers and I was shocked. So when I heard the news that Italy wanted to put such an obstacle for the Internet, I'm not particularly surprised.

Italy, France, China: the new axis against Google?

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