On October 9, 2024, a law[1] was published that amends the law against online piracy[2] and the Italian Copyright Act, with the aim of enhancing the fight against online piracy in Italy.
First, the amended Articles 2 and 6 of Law 93/2023 make significant changes to regulations governing the urgent and precautionary measures that the Italian Communications Authority (AGCOM) can issue to disable access to copyright-infringing content disseminated online.
The new regulatory framework now includes the obligation to block illegal transmissions within 30 minutes from service of AGCOM’s disabling order following the rightsholders’ notification of the infringement. It also expands the list of potential recipients of such orders to include providers of VPN services and publicly available DNS services, wherever they are located. The same provision entitles “IP address assignment service providers, the Italian Registry for the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) .it, and domain name registration service providers for ccTLDs other than Italian and for generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) names” to rehabilitate periodically previously blocked IP addresses, provided that at least six months have elapsed and they are not used for illegal activities.
Second, the new Art. 174-sexies of the Italian Copyright Act now requires entities that become aware of any criminal conduct sanctioned by the Italian Copyright Act, computer fraud, or abusive access to a computer system to report the existence of such illegal conducts to Italian public authorities. The entities subject to the reporting obligation include “network access service providers, search engine operators, and information society services providers, including providers and intermediaries of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) or other technical solutions that hinder the identification of the source IP address, content delivery network operators, providers of Internet security services, and distributed DNS who stand between visitors to a site and hosting providers acting as reverse proxy servers for websites.”
These entities are also required to designate and notify to AGCOM a point of contact that enables direct communication with AGCOM for the purposes related to the Italian Copyright Act. An entity that is not established in the European Union and offers services in Italy must designate a natural or legal person to act as its legal representative in Italy and communicate directly with AGCOM for the same purposes.
Failure to report illegal conduct related to transmission of illegal content or to designate the point-of-contact can be punished with imprisonment of up to one year. These new criminal sanctions were also added to the list of crimes that may give rise to the s.c. administrative corporate liability for criminal conduct.[3] These omissions may trigger additional pecuniary and injunctive consequences for the entity.
[1] Law 143/2024.
[2] Law 93/2023.
[3] Under Legislative Decree No. 231/2001.
