Search results : 399

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...

On 30 March 2017, almost exactly three years after its entry into force, all of the appeals against the Autorità per le garanzie nelle comunicazioni (Italian Communications Authority - AGCOM) Regulation on copyright protection online have been dismissed by two judgments of the Italian Regional Administrative Tribunal for Latium (TAR). The judgments, released in February but made publicly available only two months later, conclude a long legal dispute, arising from the appeals made by associations representing Internet service providers, web-TVs, and consumers. The Regulation was adopted in 2013...

On 18 January 2017, the Court of Rome handed down an awaited decision in a copyright and unfair competition case between Data Stampa and Eco della Stampa, two professional news agencies, and FIEG and Promopress, two associations representing Italian newspaper publishers. The lawsuit arose out of the publication, by Data Stampa and Eco della Stampa, of an on-demand and customised press review that included articles retrieved from newspapers or parts of the same. According to the publishers, selecting pieces of newspapers to create a separate press review did amount to an act of reproduction or communication...

On 27 December 2016, the Italian Supreme Court published a decision through which it confirmed the conviction of the owner of the website www.agenziacalcio.it for defamation. The defamatory comment had first been posted by a user of the same website. The latter, in fact, posted a defamatory comment concerning “C.T.”, the person targeted by the statement, below an article on the website.  At the time, C.T. was President of the National Youth League of the Italian Football Association (“FIGC”) and he is currently serving as President of the FIGC. In order to corroborate his statement, the user sent...

By the judgment handed down on 15 November 2016 and published on 20 January 2017 (no. 1547/2017), the Italian Supreme Court (Joint Sections) has written the last chapter of the seven-year-old battle (see IRIS 2016-3/23) over the Regulation on the digital terrestrial television channel line-up (“LCN”), adopted in 2010 by the Italian Communication Authority (AGCOM) by resolution no. 366/2010/CONS. The saga that has (likely) ended up with such a decision began right after the approval of the LCN regulation, which was challenged by several local broadcasters who alleged that LCN positions had not been...