(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)

By Legislative Decree no.140 of 16 March 2006, with more than one month before the deadline, Italy implemented Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRED) by amending law no.633/1941, which has already been the subject of so many modifications since its inception that several parties are calling for its complete re-drafting.

The most notable modifications to the Italian copyright law include the presumption of ownership of the neighbouring rights, as it was already the case for author's rights; the possibility for collective and "representative" organizations to independently promote judicial actions in order to defend their members' rights; the possibility to ask judges to inhibit activities, including those by intermediaries, that can be construed as an infringement of authors' or neighbouring rights; the possibility for judges in the case of infringement "on a commercial scale"- on request of the interested party - to order banking, financial and other commercial data to be produced by the counterpart; a more detailed procedure to calculate damages.

Some of the modifications were not so relevant, as the Italian judges have already applied the same principles as a matter of custom and practice. For example the Italian criminal procedures already contained norms that allow a judge to apply a sanction in case a party delays of fails to put a writ in practice. Or the so-called "right of information", by which a judge can request third parties to produce relevant information they might have with regards to an infringement.

The Italian implementation of IPRED has been severely criticized, among others by Andrea Monti of ALCEI (Associazione per la Liberta` nella Comunicazione Elettronica Interattiva - EDRi-member). In an article published on the Italian journal "InterLex", Monti considered that the Legislative Decree is too vague in its key parts - including the definition of what is an "intermediary" and the type of evidences that must be produced in order for a judicial injunction to be issued.

Text of Legislative Decree no. 140/16 March 2006 (only in Italian, 16.03.2006)
http://www.gazzettaufficiale.it/guri/attocompleto?dataGazzetta=2006-04...
http://www.camera.it/parlam/leggi/deleghe/testi/06140dl.htm

Andrea Monti, Copyright - a "particular" and "concrete" law (only in Italian, 23.02.2006)
http://www.interlex.it/copyright/amonti84.htm

Explanatory report on the Italian implementation of IPRED (only in Italian)
http://www.interlex.it/testi/pdf/rec482004.pdf

EDRI-gram: New Italian IT legislation limits civil rights (1.03.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.4/italianlaws

(Contribution by Andrea Glorioso, consultant on digital policies - Italy)
(Thanks to Ms. De Angelis - DDA Law Firm)