Italian Ruling on Piracy Puts Websites on Notice

Italy has developed a reputation for antagonizing the world’s biggest Internet companies. Legal actions targeted at the likes of Google and Facebook have created a fractious relationship between the government and leading technology brands. In a recent case, heard by Rome’s ninth circuit, the makers of the award-winning Iranian film drama About Elly sued Yahoo. The movie’s Italian distributor, PFA, claimed that pirated clips and links to illegal film downloads were appearing in Yahoo Video searches and demanded that the company remove the videos from the search results. When Yahoo didn't respond, the case was taken up by Open Gate, a regulatory lobby group run by Tullio Camiglieri, a former journalist and executive in Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Italia.