Italian Court Comes To Its Senses, Says Google Execs In US Not Responsible For Kids Uploading Video

from the about-time dept

Fri, Dec 21st 2012 11:52am — Mike Masnick

Earlier this month, we wrote about how an Italian court was considering the appeal by three Google execs of their earlier criminal conviction over some kids uploading a video to Google Video. The whole case was really bizarre, putting the liability for the kids uploading the video on some US-based execs who had nothing to do with it. As we noted when the conviction came down, legal experts believed that the judge had made a serious mistake in reading the law. Of course, it took three years to get to the appeal, and Italian prosecutors were still demanding that these execs be put in jail.

Thankfully, however, the appeals court has overturned that ruling and said that the execs are not personally liable. Giovanni Maria Riccio, an Italian legal expert, agreed that "this is a landmark decision," especially concerning secondary liability. As he noted "it makes clear that monitoring obligations cannot be imposed on ISPs and that, in any case, these obligations are not connected with the financial benefit gained by intermediaries." As we had been arguing from the beginning, if Italian prosecutors won out in the long term, the potential incentives for foreign companies to make their services available in Italy would have been greatly diminished. Now, if Italian courts would only stop sending scientists to jail for failing to predict an earthquake...

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Filed Under: intermediary liability, italy, secondary liability
Companies: google

11 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 21 Dec 2012 @ 12:06pm

first sensible court decision i've seen recently, what with a guy being found guilty because he designed a website and a porn company being given permission to carry out speculative invoicing, relying only on an IP address which proves nothing, when previous companies trying to carry out this extortion process were stopped, seems like the justice systems everywhere are going nuts. the poor old ordinary citizen will soon be back in the days of the Lord of the Manor, where only he was right!
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Dec 2012 @ 12:09pm

"if Italian prosecutors won out in the long term, the potential liability for foreign companies to make their services available in Italy would have been greatly diminished."

I'm probably reading this wrong, but wouldn't potential liability increase, not diminish, if the prosecutors had prevailed?
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Dec 2012 @ 12:11pm

I can't even fathom how anyone would think it's appropriate to jail Google executives for a video that was uploaded.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Dec 2012 @ 12:13pm

Re:
Yeah... Well, I suppose in the LONG term it would diminish because websites would no longer be available in Italy.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 21 Dec 2012 @ 12:56pm

Re:
I'm probably reading this wrong, but wouldn't potential liability increase, not diminish, if the prosecutors had prevailed?

No, I wrote it wrong. Brain got shifted mid-sentence. Fixed... it's "incentives -> diminished" and "liability -> increased" but I started with one and ended with the other.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Dec 2012 @ 12:58pm

Re:
Ask AJ.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Dec 2012 @ 1:05pm

Re: Re:
Gotcha. I figured it might be something like that.

Keep up the good work, Mike.
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out_of_the_blue, 21 Dec 2012 @ 1:22pm

Re: @ an AC
"I can't even fathom how anyone would think it's appropriate to jail Google executives for a video that was uploaded." -- Well, first, it's part of the risk you run when you make available services that can be abused. I'm sure you'd agree that SOME content is illegal to even host... But that brings up the part Mike (and AC) continue to leave out, that Google was notified for a couple months (more or less; they'd no procedure in place for take-downs, apparently, but people tried to get them to), SO Google failed to act, and yes, corporations and corporate officers can be punished for failing to act; they DO have some responsibility.

Hope that clears it up for you.
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Atkray (profile), 21 Dec 2012 @ 1:45pm

Re: Re: @ an AC
"Ask AJ."

or out_of_the_blue.
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John Fenderson (profile), 21 Dec 2012 @ 1:52pm

Re: Re: @ an AC
But that brings up the part Mike (and AC) continue to leave out, that Google was notified for a couple months (more or less; they'd no procedure in place for take-downs, apparently, but people tried to get them to)

This has been addressed a number of times, but I think you ignore the answer because you don't like it. Google was not notified a couple of months earlier. Comments were made on the YouTube page. That's not notification.

And yes, there is a well-established and easy procedure for take-downs.
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Anonymous Coward, 21 Dec 2012 @ 7:50pm

Re: Re: @ an AC
For every criminal that escapes every single person in law enforcement must be charged for failing to nab said criminals.

Glad you helped us clear that up, out_of_the_asscrack.
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