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With decision no. 2833 published on 29 April 2017, the Court of Appeal of Rome confirmed in its entirety last year’s ruling issued by the First Instance Court of Rome in the RTI vs. Break Media case (see IRIS 2016-6/18). Break Media is an Internet portal that publicly offers free videos, created by Break Media itself or uploaded by users, on a platform that bases its business model on advertising. The platform, in fact, has an editorial team which manually categorises the videos on the basis of several criteria. Along with the videos, users are shown targeted advertising decided on the basis of...

On 18 April 2017, the Autorità per le garanzie nelle comunicazioni (the Italian Communications Authority - AGCOM) issued a decision by which - for the first time ever - it has applied the ban set forth in Article 43, paragraph 11, of the Italian Code on Audiovisual Media Services (CAMS). That provision  was introduced in 2004, and applies to undertakings that achieve a turnover exceeding 40% of the overall combined sales in the electronic communications services markets. The provision prevents such undertakings from holding either a controlling stake or a qualified minority stake (a “collegamento”)...

On 7 April 2017, the Court of Turin delivered a significant judgment affecting Internet service providers’ (ISPs) liability for the removal of copyrighted content published without authorisation of the rightsholders. In particular, the decision followed prior proceedings in 2014 in which YouTube had been ordered to takedown the content that constituted copyright infringement referenced by the plaintiff (DeltaTV) through the relevant URL, and to adopt the necessary technical steps in order to prevent users from again uploading the same content. According to the Court of Turin, the evolution of the...

On 9 March 2017, the Autorità per le garanzie nelle comunicazioni (the Italian Communications Authority - AGCOM), released Decision No. 41/17/CONS concerning “Recognition of relevant markets in audiovisual media services sector, in accordance with Article 43, paragraph 2, of Legislative decree 31 July 2015, no. 177”. The Decision represents the end of the first phase of a complicated administrative procedure that began with Decision No. 286/15/CONS (siehe IRIS 2015-7/21), aimed at recognising the relevant markets in the audiovisual media services (AVMS) sector and at understanding whether there...

The spreading of fake news on the Internet is a highly debated social and legal issue, and one that has also been debated in Italy, in particular during the recent constitutional referendum campaign. Accordingly, lawmakers and regulators are approaching this legal issue with a view to preventing patently false information from circulating via the Internet. After the President of the Italian Competition Authority called for new rules on fake news, a legislative proposal was submitted by Senator Adele Gambaro on 7 February 2017 (“DDL Gambaro”) in the Senate of the Republic. The bill aims at introducing...