[Foundation-l] keep watching the Italian government

Sat Oct 20 10:52:44 UTC 2007

Hi!

The situation is "desperate but not serious", as most of what involves the
Italian govt. :) They write a lot of laws, and most of them never get to be
used. Moreover, reading the article about the main author of the law will
explain a lot of things (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Franco_Levi ).
The Holy Journalists' Guild is stepping in to protect their own Sacred
Kingdom... with the number of sold papers sinking lower and lower since many
years already they now try and stop the most obvious competitors (which
explains VERY well why blogs get targeted much more than, say, copvios). As
it's always the case in Italy, the only ideology behind any government is
called "personal vested interest". It's but a pathetic effort, though. Their
battle is lost from the start.

Moreover, apart from writing a law, in Italy you also need to issue a set of
rules regarding its practical implementation; otherwise it simply remains on
paper, no matter how pompous it may look. Only once such a detailed
practical statement is issued the actual power will (would?) be transferred
to the managers of this "ROC". Then you need another statement giving them
money to open an office, hire people and start to meet. Then they need to
elaborate a policy... then they need to decide how to enforce it... then
they need to have their proposed instruments approved for them to take ANY
practical action... The government will have changed 5-6 times before they
EVEN start to talk about one real-life case. 

Besides, there is no way in which the Italian govt. can exercise censorship
on anything happening outside Italy, including the EU. The only way for Rome
to get in control of ALL the net is a "fascist autarchy", meaning that we
would have some sort of "great Italian firewall". The results on the
international image of the country are too obvious to need an explicit
description. I also wonder whether anyone in Rome has the tech knowledge it
takes to make it. Even if they did, I can think of only one possible result:
an endless amount of fines from all European Courts and a possible expulsion
from the EU and Shengen, as this goes against ANY possible principle in
"freedom of movement". So let's not mistake a frightened kitten for a tiger.
Nobody in Italy has that many guts.

A different level of risk might be involved for all associations based in
Italy, as they may be held responsible in terms of Italian Law. The usual
easy answer is: leave the country. There are lots of Italian native speakers
all over the world, associations and foundations can be moved with little
cost whatsoever. It also makes no difference in practice, since most of our
activities happen on line. If you don't want to get too faraway, places like
Vatican City, San Marino and Monaco can provide easy immediate answers.
France is more complicated for opening charities and foundations, and the
German areas seem quite twisted, too. The UK is very nice, but... it's
faraway and it does require you speak English, which is something very few
Italians can do. The Netherlands would require a minimal number of Dutch
citizens to sit in the Board, and that's yet another problem.

Anyway, this is but a very theoretical level of risk. 99% of the chances say
that this law will have the same effect as (say) here:
http://scientifico.neurodoc.it/focus/cartaeuropea/carta_europea.pdf 

Note the phrase "tenendo in particolare conto le sue specificità religiose,
etniche o linguistiche" ..." which would imply that any person receiving
medical assistance in Italy should be assisted in his/her native language,
and obviously he/she shouldn't have a cross hanged on his/her head if he/she
is not a Christian... Can you name ONE single Italian hospital being just
even "aware" of this rule? How many people you know have properly registered
their radio cars and TV sets in Italy? I can't think of a single such person
in Turin, during the long years I lived there. And I can't remember a single
cop asking anyone whether they had paid a tax for their car's radio, either.
Being "forbidden in Italy" rarely has any practical relevance whatsoever, in
real life. 

So get ready to need some minor formal adjustments (THAT's always the case
in Italy, even for Criminal Law), but don't invest many worries on Rome.
They are impotent anyway. We are confronting but a few elder journalists
panicking for their pensions, no more than that. You'll just need to do a
few "ad hoc" renames and keep running just as you always did, in the best
Italian tradition :) In the meantime, their pre-net newspapers will finally
go bankrupt and there will be no one to fight against.

If you want to defend a formal principle, we have a say in Piedmont that
goes "hit their wallet if you want to be heard". A first prudential measure
(and means of pressure) may consist in avoiding using Italian servers and
canceling any contract with Italian IT vendors (of any kind, services
included) based on the "ROC-risk" issue. This would include campaigning
against one's own company, if you work for such a company. It takes guts to
do so, but if one really loves principles it might be an idea. Yet...
remember, those who make pressure are journalists AND newspaper
publishers... so you might want to hit *them*, first. But I still think that
time and media evolution will hit them much harder that you can even dream
of.

Anyway, such "radical moves" have nothing to do with WMF and its lists. If
you need any assistance about lobbying feel free to write me in private.

Bèrto ‘d Sèra
Skype: berto.d.sera
Personagi dl’ann 2006 për l’arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojàotri)
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html

-----Original Message-----
From: foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:foundation-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Gianluigi
Gamba
Sent: Friday, October 19, 2007 11:30 PM
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
Cc: Frontiere Digitali
Subject: [Foundation-l] keep watching the Italian government

Hi everybody,

the Italian government has advanced a proposal for a law that - if
approved by the Parliament - will oblige all the "publishing
productions", regardless of the media they use for their diffusion,
therefore web-based ones included, to be registered into the "registro
degli operatori della comunicazione" (ROC) - "register of the operator
of the communications" (such a register nowadays seem to exist in very
few contries in the world).
Registration is virtually free of charge, but it requires someone (not
yet clear whether a citizen, a professional or an organization - not
yet clear whether Italian citizen of not) to take legal responsability
for the contents.

The current text of law proposal includes among the "publishing
productions" (together with on-line newpapers and other media) also
the personal blogs(!) and non-profit experiences like the Italian
editions of the Wikimedia projects.

"Per attività editoriale si intende ogni attività diretta alla
realizzazione e distribuzione di prodotti editoriali, nonché alla
relativa raccolta pubblicitaria. L'esercizio dell'attività editoriale
può essere svolto anche in forma non imprenditoriale per finalità non
lucrative".

"With publishing activity is meant every activity aimed to produce and
diffuse publishing productions and to the relevant advertising
activities. A publishing activity can be done also under
non-enterpreneurial forms with no lucrative aim".

Wikimedia projects are in a borderline situation: they are WMF's own
and therefore the law of the US applies, nevertheless their Italian
edition are meant for an Italian audience (yes, not only on the soil
of the Italian Republic).

If this law proposal becomes a law and Italian authorities ask for the
registration, we might risk the Italian versions of the Wikimedia
projects to be made unavailable for the Italian citizens.
It's clearly impossible for the Italian version of the Wikimedia
projects to find a person who can bear the legal responsibility for
all the contents.
No one would guarantee personally about Wikimedia projects contents,
and if someone would be so crazy to do that, such person would have
the last word on every Wiki* article. That's absolutely incompatible
with the nature of the Wikimedia projects.

For those of you who can read Italian, you can find some details here
http://punto-informatico.it/p.aspx?i=2092327
and an on-line petition for dumping this law proposal here
http://www.petitiononline.com/noDDL/petition.html

I wonder whether WMF and the Wiki* communities can somehow make
pressure and help spreading this news around the globe.

Hoping for the law proposal to be dumped or changed, or for the law
not applied to Wikimedia projects (although such a law would very
seriously impact on the freedom of speech in Italy), I thank you all
for your attention.

G. (aka Paginazero)

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