Italian Parliament To Mistakenly Legalize MP3 P2P

plainwhitetoast recommends an article in La Repubblica.it — in Italian, Google translation here. According to Italian lawyer Andrea Monti, an expert on copyright and Internet law, the new Italian copyright law would authorize users to publish and freely share copyrighted music (p2p included). The new law, already approved by both legislative houses, indeed says that one is allowed to publish freely, through the Internet, free of charge, images and music at low resolution or "degraded," for scientific or educational use, and only when such use is not for profit. As Monti says in the interview, those who wrote it didn't realize that the word "degraded" is technical, with a very precise meaning, which includes MP3s, which are compressed with an algorithm that ensures a quality loss. The law will be effective after the appropriate decree of the ministry, and will probably have an impact on pending p2p judicial cases.

In other news

[blind biker]

Pirate Bay is rumored to move its operations to Italy.

Re:Meaning of words

[rakuen]

Oh that's easy. We're simply studying how the combination of 0s and 1s can result in the most horrid sounds known to humanity.

This is wonderful

[Bluewraith]

Force degrading the music beyond the mp3 compression issue! I've been waiting for the day I can listen to current-day music with pops and scratches just like my old vinyl collection! I just can't get audacity to bring out the "spilled coffee on my 7 inch" sound realistically enough. Metallica always sounds better with a little sugar and creamer.

Who cares?

[Otter]

As a pompous audiophile, this does me absolutely no good whatsoever. On the other hand, the crown icon has given me an excellent idea for enhancing the performance of my 24 karat gold speaker cables by encrusting them with gems.

Re:In other news

[KublaiKhan]

True enough, but this does raise some interesting possibilities--Italy may end up with a large number of folks deciding to pay to host their 'educational' mp3 collections (say, for their correspondence 'music appreciation' course) in Italy, thus providing employment, et al.

The key is to get the Mafia supporting this, so that they can view the RIAA as a threat to the business, and treat 'em accordingly. ;-p

mafIAA

[davidwr]

I thought the RIAA and MPAA were wholly-owned indirect-through-a-dozen-shell-compay subsidiaries of the Mafia. Or did I get that backwards?

Science Project

[saxonw12]

If I were an Italian kid I know what my school science project would be. I'd be researching the effects of popularity on the speed of music downloads in certain p2p protocols...

Re:This is wonderful

[boristdog]

"spilled coffee on my 7 inch"

I hear you can sue McDonalds for a lot of $$$ if you do that!

Re:mafIAA

[Daimanta]

Yes, but they are the American mafia, so they are direct competitors. And everone knows what the mafia does with competitors.

Re:Calling all OiNK ex-admins!

[edittard]

This is an announcement: A long offtopic flamewar about how vinyl is (or isn't) so much better than any form of digital reproduction will be along momentarily. We now return to your scheduled programming.

Re:In other news

[Anomolous Cowturd]

I can just see it now: Mafia versus MAFIAA.

(Music And Film Industry Association of America)

Re:mafIAA

[skeeto]

Yes, it would be a shame if something were to happen to the RIAA's knees.

Re:Who cares?

[B3ryllium]

Ah yes, the good old Faraday-Fabergé Cage configuration.

M.A.F.I.A.

[tepples]

What you're thinking of is the Music And Film Industry Association, the international division of the Music And Film Industry Association of America [mafiaa.org].

Re:Calling all OiNK ex-admins!

[cheater512]

I've always wondered: Why dont they just play a record and record that on to a CD? :)
You then get the Vinyl sound from a CD.

Re:Higher authorities

[sm62704]

Sorry to rain on your parade, but this will last about as long as the shenanigans in France a few years ago.

I thought the Irish had a monopoly on shenanigans? Don't the French have their own silly word?

Re:Mistakenly?

[yorugua]

B) The knowledge of 50+ yr old career politicians w/regards to technology

And what about the marketing/mafia/legal knowledge of the NASA technology experts radiating "across the universe" from The Beatles to the whole Universe? I sense a massive URIAA (universal Riaa) and his legal team from Omicron IV to beat the hell out those NASA nerds. Or is it going to be transmitted with DRM? The amount of cease-and-desist-letters rain coming from outer space will make the leonids a picnic. Just imagine, we discover an extraterrestrial life form represented by: their lawyers. We could be starting a war here. The rammifications are endless.

http://gizmodo.com/351542/space-aliens-first-to-get-drm+free-beatles-music [gizmodo.com]

TFA:
You may have heard that at 7pm EST on Feb. 4, NASA plans to blast The Beatles' song "Across the Universe" into deep space in order to serenade otherworldly beings hundreds, thousands or millions of light years away with our very best pop music. I have several problems with this.

For starters, NASA: You got the choice of the entire Beatles catalog, and you pick a song only because it contains a relevant metaphor? I mean, have you ever listened to Revolver? Wait, actually, you clearly must've, since Paul McCartney performed "Good Day Sunshine" in Nov. 2005 for the astronauts aboard the International Space Station. If you're aiming at aliens, why not choose something a little less intelligible, like "Dig a Pony," "Come Together" or "Tomorrow Never Knows." If those weren't written for space aliens, I don't know what.

Next on my shitlist: EMI and Apple Corp. WTF???? I've been a lifelong fan of your stupid Fab Four, but you're giving six billion purple globules from the Crab Nebula a shot at digitally retrieving The Beatles before I get one single measly 99-cent download? How is that fair? (Of course, the complete Beatles catalog is already on my iPod, but still!)

And finally, a message to the Crab people: Don't trust these downloads. You'll see the file streaming into your antenna array and you'll be like, "Sweet! Free music!" But then you open the file, and you get this message on your Crab Nebula equivalent of Windows Media Player 11, saying that in order to enjoy this track, you need to get authorization from a central server. You click okay, and the message has to travel back to earth, taking another 50,000 years or so. Which may seem worth the wait, only the track itself expires in 30 days.

So good luck to you, purple Crab people. And GFY, recording industry. You have dissed me for the last time. [Network World via The Inquirer]

Re:Legal actions

[jadin]

for scientific or educational use, and only when such use is not for profit.

Italy reports the number of people taking guitar lessons is up 5000%.

Re:mafIAA

[Valdrax]

No it wouldn't.