Italian ISPs Court Ordered to Unblock Streaming Website

The Italian Court of Appeals has recalled a blocking order against the video streaming service Filmakerz.org. The court argued that the order was too broad and specified that partial blocking of a specific URL is preferred over site-wide blockage, while copyright infringing portals must have a for-profit angle.


Back in March, the Public Prosecutor of Rome ordered national ISPs to block access to 46 torrent, streaming and other file-sharing websites. This move became the largest enforcement action against “pirate” websites in the country, and the authorities promised that it wouldn’t be the last.

One of the services affected by the ban was Filmakerz.org, a video streaming service offering its subscribers a variety of films and TV-shows for free. The website was mainly popular in Italy, and its traffic plummeted as a result of the blockage.

However, unlike most blocked websites, Filmakerz.org decided to appeal the decision and succeeded. A few days ago the Court of Appeals overturned the ban order against the website, confirming that it was too broad and therefore invalid. The panel of judges pointed out that each blocking request should specify the exact URLs which infringe copyrighted works, not just a single domain name. Since the court doesn’t have an exact location of the infringing material, the court cannot verify the validity of the blocking request.

The attorneys of Filmakerz.org admitted that the ruling was a clear blow against the increasing censorship efforts in the country. They also cited two important ground rules specified by the court. The first was that the Public Prosecutor had to prove the existence of a for-profit motivation to block the site, while the second was that parts of the website that contain legal content must not affected. In other words, a partial seizure of an exact link is preferred over the seizure of the entire website.

The ruling comes at a difficult time for Italian file-sharers: just a few days ago the country’s Electronic Communications Authority introduced new regulations that would allow foreign portals to be blocked more easily. As a result of the recent court ruling, local Internet service providers were instructed to unblock Filmakerz.org. Thus far, it is unclear if other blocked websites are going to appeal the blockade.