14 DAY TRIAL // Italy doesn’t even have to bother with a court order to shut down sites it considers to be illegal and therefore has censored yet another four torrent sites.
Back in December, Italy’s new regulations were announced and it has been clear since then that the telecoms administrative body would go on a rampage against torrent sites.
AGCOM, the Italian Communications Regulatory Authority, has had the power to cut off access to such sites since the end of March and The Pirate Bay has already fallen prey to the blockade. Now, LimeTorrents, TorrentDownload.ws, Torrentz.pro and TorrentDownloads.me have joined the quickly growing list.
All four sites were deemed to be infringing and, as a result, will be blocked by ISPs, AGCOM announced. Anti-piracy groups are to blame for this, as music and movie groups have complained to the authority about these sites containing links to torrented copies of work they have copyright over.
AGCOM has simply reviewed the complaints, deemed them genuine and moved on to expand the list of blocked torrent sites.
One thing that authorities always ignore when it comes to such situations is that torrent sites also contain perfectly legal content that users will no longer have access to due to the blockade.
TorrentFreak points out that the United States Trade Representative has been putting pressure on the world to take action against piracy. The Special 301 Report used to include Italy among the countries where piracy was abundant.
In this year’s report, Italy is no longer mentioned. The USTR has even noted that the removal reflects the significant steps that the Italian government has taken to address the problem of online piracy, as well as the continued US commitment to meaningful and sustained engagement with the European country.
The decision to take out Italy from the list was most likely taken as the local government adopted the new laws empowering AGCOM to forgo any court visits and simply take the reins on the site blockade.
Aside from the sites that are getting blocked by AGCOM, the Italian authorities separately blocked 46 websites that offer torrents, streaming and file sharing services, back in March. The decision was taken by the Public Prosecutor of Rome, which decided to crack down on websites accused of providing pirated material.
The same legal entity blocked another 27 sites in 2013, so the measure taken in March is not really a surprise.