14 DAY TRIAL // The Appeals Court in Rome, Italy, has agreed to recall a blocking order against one video site that was put on the black list last month.
Filmakerz.org will now become available to Italian users after the court decided that the block order was too broad. Furthermore, the court said that it was preferable to block specific URLs, rather than entire sites, and that copyright-infringing sites must work for profit, reports indicate.
The decision to block Filmakerz.org, as well as 45 other sites, came from the Public Prosecutor of Rome last month. It was the largest action against sites that often infringed copyright in Italy.
While most sites regularly give up fighting such decisions in court, Filmakers.org had a different idea and took its case to the Court of Appeals. To its relief, the judges overturned the blocking order, saying that it was too broad, and that it should have specified exactly which URLs led to infringing content.
The case is particularly important since it sets a precedent for other sites to follow. Fulvio Sarzana, the lawyer representing the site, believes that this is a blow to the growing efforts of authorities and copyright holders to censor the Internet.
The court decision contains two important rules, he believes. The first is that the prosecutor must actually provide proof of the existence of a for-profit motivation to get the blocking order. The second one is that sites that also contain legitimate content must not be affected entirely.
This notion has been mentioned many times over the years, especially as copyright holders sent DMCA notices to companies such as Google, asking for the removal of homepage links rather than specific ones.
“The verdict is important because it shows that the order to block a site should be carefully decided, and is also important in the light of AGCOM rules,” Sarzana said, referring to a new set of rules that would make it easier for Italian authorities to block foreign sites.
Filmakerz.org should become available for Italians soon, as the order has already been sent to local ISPs.
It’s unclear thus far if other sites will try to cash in on the success of Filmakerz.org, but chances are they’re going to win if they do so. It depends, of course, on how the original order was formulated and whether they’re even going to bother trying.