Comes from court of Frosinone the sentence that could change the concept of piracy on the net. In fact, Judge Gemma Carlomusto annulled the fine of over half a million euros which had been imposed on the operators of some sites (filmakerz.org, filmaskers.biz, filmaker.me, cineteka.org) which contained links to external sites allowed to download or stream pirate movie, i.e. made available by third parties and not by copyright holders.
The motivation of the sentence is that it has not been proven that these sites earned money thanks to the films, despite hosting banner ads. Furthermore, the sentence makes a distinction between profit and cost savings, legitimizing in some way the "file sharing".
According to the lawyer Fulvio Sarzana, who defended the owners of the sites, this is a historic decision for three main reasons: "The first is that it establishes precisely that the fact of linking to sites that make available works protected by copyright The author is not in itself illicit, because if anything, the illicit is committed by the one who puts that work on the Internet”.
The "second important principle is that file sharing in itself, therefore the sharing of files protected by copyright, if not accompanied by a lucrative activity, must be considered lawful, for example the exchange between private subjects through Torrent files, or even in the case of a portal, if this puts private subjects in a position to make exchanges".
“The third principle, perhaps the most important, concerns advertising: the fact that a site has banners does not automatically imply that the revenue is linked to a possible infringement of copyright that occurs on a third party site. The connection, if there is one, must be proven”.
In any case, it remains to be seen how such a ruling will develop, but it seems highly probable that it could change the definition of piracy, without penalizing file sharing users.
