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On 29 September 2009, the Third Criminal Chamber of the Italian Court of Cassation entered a judgment against the owners of the Swedish BitTorrent website The Pirate Bay, holding that the website could be placed under ‘preventive seizure’ (sequestro preventivo) and Italian Internet Service Providers (ISPs) could be enjoined to block access by their users to the website. The decision of the Court of Cassation is but the latest development in Italy in the criminal investigations brought against the owners of the Swedish website, charged with aiding and abetting, on a profit-making basis, the illegal...

On 8 October 2009, the European Commission decided to close infringement procedures initiated against Italy and Estonia for breaches of the EU’s advertising rules, as set out in the old Television without Frontiers (TwF) Directive. In regard to Italy, the Commission’s concerns focused on three fronts: (1) Teleshopping messages too short to enable their identification as such by viewers were being broadcast by Italian television channels, while also not being counted towards the twelve-minute hourly advertising limit; (2) Television stations' self-promotional spots were not included within Italy’s...

On 3 April 2009, the Judge for Preliminary Investigation of the Court of Rome upheld the motion by the public prosecutor to drop charges of illegal file sharing on a peer-to-peer website against the owner of the IP address used to commit the alleged crime. Both the public prosecutor and the Court clarified in their statements of reasons that there is no proof that the person who has entered into a contract with an ISP for the provision of access to the Internet is the one who engaged in illegal file sharing using that IP address. As the prosecutor duly noted in his motion, indeed it cannot be ruled...

On 22 July 2009, the European Commission approved under State aid rules a EUR 82 million Italian tax incentive scheme for film investment and distribution. In the same decision, the Commission also decided to open a formal investigation into a proposal for tax incentives for digital projection in Italian cinemas. The tax incentives aim to support and promote the production and distribution of Italian cultural films. The approved tax incentives complement the Italian film production tax incentives already approved by the Commission in December 2008 (see IRIS 2008-9: 15, IRIS 2009-3: 14 and IRIS...

On 22 July 2009 the European Commission approved under state aid rules most aspects of a EUR 82 million Italian tax incentive scheme for film investment and distribution (see IRIS 2009-9: 6/5). The approved tax incentives complement the Italian film production tax already approved by the Commission in December 2008 (see IRIS 2008-9: 15/24; IRIS 2009-3: 14/23; and IRIS 2009-6: 14/23). The Italian notification had included a number of fiscal measures for various activities related to the film sector. a) a tax credit for businesses outside the film sector investing in the production of Italian cultural...