Italy’s First Attempt To Block Websites With No Judicial Review Reveals How Dangerous The System Is
by Mike Masnick
TechDirt.com
Fri, May 2nd 2014
Late last year, we wrote about how Italy was about to change some of its copyright enforcement setup to give enforcement powers to regulators instead of the courts. That is, regulator AGCOM could now simply declare — with no judicial review or due process — that certain sites were infringing and then order ISPs to block access to those sites. While other Italian prosecutors have sought to do the same thing, AGCOM now has the official power to delete websites off the Italian internet if they so much claim they’re somehow infringing.
Recently, AGCOM decided to exercise its new power, issuing its first administrative blocking injunction against a site called Cineblog01 — meaning that ISPs in Italy need to block users from accessing the site. Now, it does appear that the site was linking and/or embedding certain films that may have been infringing. But there are still serious problems with the injunction. IPKat, who wrote about this, details three fairly serious problems with the way that AGCOM handled this.
The Rest…HERE
