Open letter to the President of the Chamber of Deputies Hon. Laura Boldrini on Parliament, the Authority for Communications Guarantees, and copyright reform
And, pc to the Presidents of the Parliamentary Groups in the Chamber of Deputies:
Hon Robert Hope, Democratic party
Hon Alessio Villarosa, 5 Star Movement
Hon Renato Brunetta, People of Liberty
Hon Lorenzo Dellai, Civic Choice for Italy
Hon Gennaro Better, Left Ecology and Freedom
Hon Pine Pisicchio, Mixed
Hon Giancarlo Giorgetti, North league
Hon Giorgia Meloni, Brothers of Italy
Milan/Rome 11 October 2013
Honorable President,
We hereby request your appropriate intervention aimed at resolve the potential institutional conflict that would be created between Parliament and the Communications Authority (hereinafter AGCOM) if the latter were to definitively adopt, in the coming weeks, the Regulation placed under consultation on online copyright in the absence of a prior intervention of the legislator.
We trust in your shrewd institutional sensitivity so that, in the interest of the citizens, Parliament's prerogatives are adequately protected from pernicious prevarications in a subject – such as that of freedom of expression on the Internet – which assumes ever more crucial importance for our Democracy.
The undersigned associations and exponents of civil society, while representing very different instances and interests, business, consumer, professional and academic, agree, in fact, in consider the repression procedure on the web proposed by AGCOM to be unjust, inappropriate and inappropriate on the merits, without recourse to the Judiciary, and have serious doubts about the existence of sufficient legitimacy in the field of copyright in the hands of this administrative Authority given the legislation in force.
On the other hand, even the previous AGCOM President had finally reached our own conclusions, so much so that he went so far as to informally ask the Government for an authentic interpretation rule that would provide the Authority with the legitimacy necessary to proceed with the approval of the proposed Regulation (see Presentation of the AGCOM 2005-2012 term balance sheet).
Over time, the new AGCOM President has also repeated on various occasions - not least in reporting in hearings to the Chambers - that " if the Parliament intervened to adopt a reform of the law n. 633/1941 which protects copyright to adapt it to the new technological and market reality, AGCOM would be happy to give way”.
It should therefore be noted that not only in the two wings of Parliament, even in the face of these stimuli, two bills have already been presented (see Chamber Act no. 1639 and Senate Act no. 1066) and that other parliamentarians have announced the presentation of further bills but, above all, that last September 25 with a Resolution signed by the Hon. the President a parliamentary commission of inquiry was set up in the Chamber of Deputies, among other things, precisely on the subject of electronic and digital piracy.
There therefore does not seem to be any doubt as to the fact that the parliamentary debate requested by the AGCOM President on online copyright is finally starting and which, moreover, within the aforementioned Commission of Inquiry an independent analysis on the so-called damages from digital piracy in our country could be prepared in the next few months in the Chamber.
In addition to the lack of legitimacy of AGCOM and the documented risks regarding its deleterious effects on freedom of expression on the Internet, most recently also highlighted by two questions addressed by Members of the European Parliament to the Commission (Questions Hon Rinaldi and Hon .li Toia/Berlinguer), the issuing AGCOM Regulation appears in fact invalidated by the absolute lack of a prior analysis of the economic impact in terms of costs and benefits which - although repeatedly requested by many - the Authority has never wanted to start.
Not only that, consider that in the face of recent decisions of the Administrative Justice AGCOM will find itself having to manage an important amount of work concerning appeals for unfair commercial practices in the telecommunications sector previously under the competence of the Competition and Market Guarantor Authority, which which frankly leaves us doubting the possibility that AGCOM could also take charge of the litigation that the Regulation on copyright would bring to it rather than, more appropriately, to the specialized sections for intellectual property of the Ordinary Courts.
It should also be remembered that at this moment, after the resignation of Commissioner Maurizio Decina, the AGCOM Board lacks one of its Members and is therefore unbalanced, for which – we urgently underline this – the Chamber of Deputies should launch transparent procedures as soon as possible to collect high-profile candidates and foresee the hearing of candidates.
It is for all these reasons that we ask you to allow the scheduling of the aforementioned bill and those about to be presented, thus initiating, with a formal parliamentary debate, also the de facto moratorium on the Regulation proposed by AGCOM.
As we have been struggling to support for some time only in Parliament, thanks to the broadest prerogatives granted to the Legislator, it can in fact be adopted a harmonic, fair and innovative copyright reform.
A reform of the law n. 633/1941 which tackles, on the one hand, with dutiful rigor the repression of profit-making violations also through tools such as the so-called follow the money, which prevents the monetization of large commercial piracy platforms without resorting nor to deny service at the DNS level, which would jeopardize freedom of expression, nor to forms of "selective removal" which would require the use of communications inspection techniques (Deep Packet Inspection) incompatible with Article 15 of the Constitution and sets, on the other hand, the most adequate preconditions for finally develop a legal market for online content in our country without forgetting, finally, to specify, detail, recognize and promote consumer rights in the new digital context.
By now it seems intolerable that, thanks to a regulatory framework unsuited to the changed technological context, the emergence of new forms of language made up not only of words but also of images, sounds, melodies, finds in copyright an instrument which, far from promoting creativity, concretely prevents its positive expression.
Adequately reconciling the rights of authors and publishers with the freedom rights of Internet users would allow the new generations to express themselves in their most congenial language and the country of fully seize the opportunities of digital thus helping to give back to the market a sector of the economy such as that of innovation and knowledge which can make Italy a case of excellence in the European panorama.
Respectfully,
Simone Aliprandi, lawyer and Ph.D., head of Copyleft-Italia.it
Dino Bortolotto, President of Assoprovider-ConfCommercio
Bruno Conte, Founder "Non Profit Manager"
Marco A. Calamari, Director of HERMES – Transparency and Digital Human Rights Study Centre
Marco Calvo, Liber Liber
Stefano Corradino, Director of the Article21 Association
Luisa Crisigiovanni, Altroconsumo Director
Giulio De Petra, President of the Ahref Foundation
Arthur of Corinth, Free Hardware Coalition
Matteo Fici, Vice President of Assoprovider
Giovanbattista Frontera, Deputy Vice President Assoprovider
Carmelo Giurdanella, Lawyer
Giovanni Battista Gallus, President of the Circle of Telematic Jurists
Giuseppe Iacono, Vice President of the States General of Innovation
Antonio Longo, National President of the Citizen Defense Movement
Francesco Luongo, National Vice President of the Citizen Defense Movement
Massimo Mantellini, Blogger and Journalist
Flavia Marzano, President of the General States of Innovation
Paolo Nuti, Vice President of AIIP-Confindustria Digitale
Marco Perduca, former Radical Senator
Carlo Piana, Lawyer activist for digital freedoms
Maria Chiara Pievatolo, Associate Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Pisa
Marco Pierani, Head of Institutional Relations Altroconsumo
Giovanni Prignano, National President of Assonet-Confesercenti
Renzo Provedel, Entrepreneur, SGI Director
Morena Ragone, Jurist
Carlo Sarzana, Honorary Adjunct President of the Court of Cassation
Fulvio Sarzana, Lawyer
Roberto Scano, President International Webmaster Association (IWA)
Marco Scialdone, Lawyer
Guido Scorza, Open Media Coalition Coordinator
