In Italy the Codice delle comunicazioni elettroniche legally bind ISPs to guarantee the functionality and security of the network (both from a physical and logical perspective). This means that if traffic shaping is needed to handle traffic overload this can be done with no specific provision.
Every proposal of nailing down traffic shaping options is a trojan horse because – for instance – copyright lobbies might whistleblow that P2P is creating an international emergency thus forcing ISPs to violate the net neutrality “for security sake”.
On Apple’s Adobe Flash Ban(g)
So, according to MacRumors, Apple’s explanation for the ban over Adobe’s Flash-to-Iphone compiler is deadly simple: Apple doesn’t want to loose its grip on the users. They invested monies in creating product, capturing a market and now want to raise fences to prevent other eating on theyr own dish (or, better, hunting in the same hunt-resort.
Adobe’s supporters – on their side – ?shout fire accusing Apple of being unfair, etc. etc. etc. …
Well, I might agree with those criticism against Apple, were the accusation coming from the open source community (where Mac OsX is supposed to come from?) but honestly I can’t accept that an hyper-proprietary company such Adobe (member of Business Software Alliance, among other things) might complain against a business strategy that is entirely into the “mood” of this industry sector. This is the market, catch-it or leave-it.
This is not to say that I do like or approve Apple behaviour.
Preventing user from having multiple choices, liberty in other words, is by definition an unfair move. I think Apple should learn from Google, whose “power” stays firmly in users’ hands.
One may think that this is wrong too. Maybe, but between a leaving in a golden cage (as soon as you can afford it) or be free in the wild I would go for the latter.
Italian Antitrust to storm on Google News?
Yesterday ? the Italian headline news announced that the Italian Antitrust, following ? claims by FIEG (Federazione Italiana Editori e Giornali – Italian Federation of Publishers and Journals), opened an investigation against Google, “charged” with discriminating against those publishers who had denied the availability of their content in Google’s News platform.
As I’ve pointed out in an interview by ANSA, this claim seems to stand on very weak legs.
As first, people use Google simply because it works. As soon as a (not necessarily new) search engine will prove to be more efficient, people quickly discharge Google.
Secondly: Google is not, by far, the only search engine to provide news search. People are not affected by a “locked-in syndrome” like in the operating system field: in other words, nobody has put a gun on the users’ temples to use Google.
Thirdly: the Internet economy is based on a quid pro quo, and the search engine sector doesn’t behave any differently. Publishers have contents, Google the technologies to make these contents available. If they join forces, publishers get traffic (i.e.: advertising), Google its part of the cake. If they don’t, they loose traffic and advertising revenues. That’s the Internet, honey!
Fourthly, let’s admit – for the sake of the discussion – that Google actually does what it is charged with. So what? As soon as the law is abided, Google is a private company, and the only people who can complain about its business strategies are the shareholders. I don’t see any reason whatsoever to force Google to look for specific content.
A final note: this situation is a typical demonstration of how “innovation” is “awarded” in Italy by the content industry. Instead of trying to unleash the power of new tools, the reaction of the traditional powers is to break it. It happened with software, it happened with music and video, and now with the Internet.
The Pirate Bay war. Does something changes for ISP’s liability?
The new episode of the Pirate Bay war leads to think that something is changing in judges’ mind in re: ISP liability. In the recent Swedish preliminary order neither is the final user the final target of a legal action, nor the ISP. The focus is on the sole and only possible defendant: the one who actually shares illicit contents (apart from the merit of the specific TPB case.) The ISP who provided the housing service for TPB torrent search engine has been ordered to “disconnect” the machine from the network and not, as in the previous episodes, to hijack users’ attempts to reach The Pirate Bay.
It is important to remark that in this trial the ISP is not involved as (contributory) defendant, but only as subject whose cooperation is – de facto – necessary to obtain the compliance to a court order. Thus, we face a situation where:
- rights of innocent end users are not endangered by the activity of the copyright majors,
- ISP’s role is not portrayed as those of an accomplish, supporter, or contributory violator,
- the target of the legal action is focused on the (alleged) culprit.
Again, I don’t want to enter in the legal quarrel about TPB responsibility. What I want to stress is that – should the Swedish approach be confirmed – a step toward and actual respect of legal principles set by dir. 31/00/CE is made.
Corporate liability for copyright infringements in Italy?
Among the measures to fight the economic crisis announced by the Italian Government, sect. 15 para 1 lett. c) of the Anti-Crisis decree deserves a special mention: to put it short, the provision asserts corporate liability (under legislative decree 231/01) ? for copyright infringement committed by top management.
Although it may seems that the new law is of a little impact on corporate life (is highly unlikely that a top manager has time to waste doing file sharing) a second glance prove this first opinion not entirely correct.
The inclusion of copyright infringements into the list of crimes implying specific corporate liability forces a company to revise its (mandatory) prevention model to reflect new changes; thus – de facto – establishing a specific set of controls aimed at downloads, website surfing and file sharing. Failing to do so might lead some zealous prosecutor to think that the company actually allows copyright abuses.
A side effect of this regulation – when it will come into full force – is that workplace privacy will get another heavy blow. For the sake of copyright abuse prevention, indeed, all of employees’ Internet activity will be deeply inspected.
So long, Mr. Data Protection Commissioner…