The Italian government is considering new law that will see its population require a licence to upload video to the Internet. This law could come into place as soon as the end of January.
To obtain the licence, individuals would need to seek permission from Italy’s Communications Ministry, not unlike television and radio broadcasters.
On Thursday opposition lawmakers held a press conference in parliament to denounce the new rules. An organization called Articolo 21, dedicated to the defense of freedom of speech, said the measures resembled an earlier government attempt to crack down on bloggers by imposing on them the same obligations and responsibilities as newspapers.
The group launched an appeal Friday entitled “Hands Off the Net,” saying the restrictive measures would mark “the end of freedom of expression on the Web.”
If this were to go ahead, Italy would become the only Western country in which it is necessary to have prior government permission to upload video content.
Other critics described the decree as an expression of the conflict of interests of Silvio Berlusconi, who exercises political control over the state broadcaster RAI in his role as prime minister and is also the owner of Italy’s largest private broadcaster, Mediaset.
Alessandro Gilioli, who writes a blog on the Web site of the weekly magazine L’Espresso, said the decree was intended to squelch future competition for Mediaset, which was planning to move into IPTV and therefore had an interest in reducing the number of independent videos circulating on the Web.
“It’s the Berlusconi method: Kill your potential enemies while they are small. That’s why anyone doing Web TV — even from their attic at home — must get ministerial approval and fulfill a host of other bureaucratic obligations,” Gilioli wrote. He said the government was also keen to restrict the uncontrollable circulation of information over the Internet to preserve its monopoly over television news.
Via The Standard
At least the Germans have learned something about censoring…
What really drives me mad is that before writing this kind of articles you guys do not double check sources and contents. You got theinput form dunno-were and publish.
This law is pretty shit, i agree with that but i can’t stand the way the “espresso” editorial group is driving all its editorial directions against Berlusconi (due to political purposes i guess) and i can’t stand that blogs like this takes info and spread the word worldwide.
The situation about freedom of speech in italy is not that bad, not abd at all i would say. Wanna say Prime minister is shit? no-one will stop you, actually many many friends of “L’espresso” group made their name on blaming on the italian general situation.
Your source is not reliable, this article is just amplifying and encouraging prejudices.
@Jasha: I’m a bit confused as to what it is you don’t like about the article??
It clearly states that a law is being considered not that it has been implemented. All you appear to be doing is ranting about anti Berlusconi press.
It would be nice if you clarified what is wrong/unreliable so that perhaps readers and the writer can take on board the information you feel this article is lacking. Without that you just appear to be talking without actually saying anything.
Well, there are LOT of proposes into the parliament environment, some from the majority party, others from the opposition, as usual. This article was written about nothing, i doubt the person who wrote it even tried to read the proposal itself and nothing but insinuations on Berlusconi himself was brought as motivation. Why this law was proposed? Is there actually any “real” problem behind the initiative? This is what a good article is supposed to do: Analyze the problem under more than one point of view and than express a critical and constructive opinion. This is what usually italian newspapers and information system do not do and this is also why this article is basically waste.
Wanna know what is wrong in italy? Well, the main problem is that the whole system is in the hands of corrupted politicians using media. What is wrong about italian people? The idea that the only person doing it is Berlusconi, unfortunately it is not.
I don’t want to teach anyone how good articles should be, any reasonable person know it. At the same time i understand when media are just “used” by any political party for their interests. Worse the fact that these articles are than republished by blogs and media like this, for what?
The first comment express what this article aim to deliver to the reader, and this is bullshit.