Italian record companies fume at Brit reporting

The case against two file sharers from Turin Polytechnic who set up a P2P file-sharing network in 1994 was chucked out by the highest court in the land.

The criminal court in Rome ruled that it was not a crime to download computer files from such networks if there was no financial gain.

But a spokesman for the Record Companies, Alex Jacob got on the blower pointing out that the case does not set a precedent, because Italy has since changed its laws.

The court ruling was made on a case brought in 1999 under copyright legislation that has since been updated. The law changed when Italy implemented the European Copyright Directive and the Urbani Decree in 2004.

"Despite what the press have told us, under the revised copyright law that is in force today, unauthorised uploading and downloading are illegal," Jacob said. Unauthorised downloading is subject to a fine, while unauthorised uploading is a criminal offence.

Under Roman law the penalty for piracy was crucifixion. µ

See Also
Italians give thumbs up to file sharing