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Court Decision

Tribunale di Roma [Tribunal of Rome], Civil, IP Specialized Section, Reti Televisive Italiane v. Il Post, 15055/13

Ruling that by providing links to streaming services, an Italian news website had infringed on copyrights owned by a major Italian media company in relation to the broadcasting of football matches. Although a simple item of information indicating the availability of streaming football matches websites may constitute the legitimate exercise of right of freedom of the press, the systematic and repeated posting. Using links to matches about to start had the effect of offering to the public a tool for the immediate and easy identification of sites where they can see the event for free. The Court of Rome prohibited the provision, in any way, of information on the name and how to access the websites allowing the unlawful streaming of the Italian media company’s content.
Court Decision

Previti v. Wikimedia, 12262/13

Tribunale di Roma [Tribunal of Rome], Civil, IP Specialized Section.
Ruling against the plaintiff - who claimed that Wikipedia was responsible for the inaccurate and defamatory statements posted by individual users on the page devoted to him. The court found that, according to the Italian E-commerce Decree, Wikimedia must be considered a hosting provider, and therefore cannot be liable for the content created by users. The Court concluded that Wikimedia is clear about its role as a hosting provider by means of a general disclaimer and that, while the system is based on users’ freedom to provide entries and add content, the same is balanced by the possibility for anyone to edit errors, modify undesirable content and to ask for its elimination through the community review processes.
Court Decision

Paoletti et all v. Google, 68306/12

Tribunale di Milano [Tribunal of Milan], Civil.
Reversing its previous decision of March 24, 2011 on the liability of search engines for the results generated by the "auto-complete" function. The court resoned that those results are not "stored not structured, organized or influenced by Google, which simply analyzes their polularity and releases them through automatic software on the basis of an algorithm"; therefore, Google cannot be considered a "content provider" but is instead a catching service, intended to facilitate users' access to online information, and as such exempted from liability for the information it stores; the decision was delivered in connection with a damage claim against Google on the basis that its "auto-complete" function predicted defamatory words when a user begun to enter the name of the plaintiff or his industry association.
Court Decision

Tribunale di Milano [Tribunal of Milan], Criminal, Reti Televisive Italiane

Ordering Internet Service Providers to block access to 10 websites streaming football games without authorization upon a claim of the main Italian private broadcaster (RTI-Mediaset), since the unlawful streaming infringed its exclusive rights to broadcast the games. The order was on Article 171-ter (2) a-bis of the Italian Copyright Law, which punishes with a criminal fine whomever makes available to the public 1a copyrighted work by inserting it into a computer system, without authorization, through connections of any type. In particular, the court specified that football games, per se, may not be considered as copyrighted works, while video recordings of the same, characterized by a specific technical and creative contribution, may be considered as such.
Court Decision

Tribunale di Milano [Tribunal of Milan], Criminal, Mondadori

At the request of Italy’s largest publishing company, Mondadori, the court ordered all Italian Internet Service Providers to block access within the Italian terriory to Avaxhome.ws, a popular website featuring links posted by users to online services hosting PDF copies of worldwide newspapers. The order was based not only on criminal copyright infringement, but also on the crime of handling stolen goods. This could imply that not only the website operators but also the website users might risk criminal consequences for posting links.
Court Decision

Tribunale di Milano [Tribunal of Milan], Civil, Reti Televisive Italiane S.p.A. (RTI) v. Yahoo! Italia S.r.l. (Yahoo!) et al., 3821/11

The Court of Milan found Yahoo! liable for copyright infringement. Infringement supposedly occurred with the publication of fragments of television programs through the now deceased Yahoo! Video service. The Court stated that the hosting safe harbor of the E-Commerce Directive could not be applied where the service is not a mere passive hosting of users' data, but is instead an "active hosting".