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In a ruling of 17 December 2013, the Italian Supreme Court of Appeal, following a lengthy legal dispute, found Google not liable for the distribution of an insulting video on the Google Video platform. The full text of the judgment is now available. The video, filmed on a mobile phone, showed several youngsters bullying and making fun of a mentally handicapped classmate. The young people responsible had been identified with Google’s help and sentenced to community service in an earlier procedure. Three of the four Google executives accused had received a six-month suspended prison sentence for...

On 18 September 2013, the Third Civil Chamber of the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation handed down a significant ruling concerning the scope of a person’s right to the protection of his or her image in the context of television features concerning public interest events, namely the gay pride parade held in Rome on 8 July 2000. According to Article 96 of the Italian Copyright Act (ICA), a person’s image cannot be displayed without his or her consent. Article 97(1) ICA, however, stipulates that no consent is required, inter alia, when the display of a person’s image occurs in association with facts,...

On 12 December 2013, the Italian communications authority - AGCOM (Autorità per le garanzie nelle comunicazioni) gave final approval, by deliberation no. 680/13/CONS, to a regulation concerning the protection of copyright on electronic communication networks, pursuant to the Italian Audiovisual and Radio Media Services Code (legislative decree no. 177/2005, as amended in 2010: see IRIS 2010-2/25 and IRIS 2010-4/31) and to the E-Commerce Directive, following a public consultation launched in July 2013 by deliberation no. 452/13/CONS. The approval of this regulation ends a process started in 2010,...

On 7 October 2013, the Italian Parliament approved the Law 112/2013 concerning the valorization of culture. Through Section 4 of this Law, the Italian Parliament aims to align its national law with the European Open Access policies emerging in the EU FP7 and in the EU Horizon 2020, as well as those expressed in the EU Commission’s Recommendation of 17 July 2012 on access to and preservation of scientific information and Commission’s Communication “Towards better access to scientific information: Towards better access to scientific information:Boosting the benefits of public investments in research”. In...

In its judgment in the case of Ricci v. Italy the European Court of Human Rights found that the suspended prison sentence of a TV presenter for disclosing confidential images violated Article 10 of the Convention. The Court is of the opinion that the nature and severity of the prison sentence constituted a disproportionate interference with the applicant’s right to freedom of expression. The Court’s judgment confirms that prison sentences for defamation of public persons or for making confidential information public, in principle amount to a breach of Article 10 of the Convention (see also ECtHR...