Italy Started Anti-Piracy Domain Seizing Campaign

As you may remember, the U.S. Homeland Security seized more than 70 domain names a couple years ago, and now Italy takes the second largest action against file-sharing and cyberlocking services.

According to media reports, the Public Prosecutor of Rome has set the weapons on at least 27 file-sharing portals. Moreover, the domain-seizing campaign, which has been dubbed “A monster from Rome”, is expected to go beyond the country’s own borders.

The statements published in press claimed that the domains of websites providing links to torrent files, allowing to download unauthorized copies of music and films, have been seized under the order by Preliminary investigation of the Judge of Rome, at the request of the public prosecutor, following an investigation of the Italian Cybercrime Police.

In the meantime, local attorneys specialized in copyright laws believe that operations like those might jeopardize freedom of speech as well as endanger legal sites. Moreover, they present a risk for the civil liberties. Copyright cannot be considered as a more essential right than freedom of expression, nor can it be regarded as a more important matter than a free and open Internet.

They also point out that the order of the seizure of the portals has been given at the request of a tiny local distributor for one single cartoon movie. Therefore, it’s clear that there isn’t any proportion between the seizure of entire portals and their domains, which contain millions of legitimate files, and the potential violation of the copyright of a single work.

At the moment, 27 domain names targeted by the Italian authorities are blocked at a DNS level.

Source: ExtraTorrent