Italian lawmakers propose blogger registration; outrage ensues
By Ema Kwiatkowski
Bloggers and journalists are outraged that unless an ambiguously-worded new law is amended before it comes into force, Italian bloggers may be required to register with a national database.
Its being called ‘Levi’s Law’. Written by Ricardo Franco Levi, undersecretary to the President of the Council, the law requires anyone with a blog or a website has to register it with Communications Authority, produce certificates, pay a tax, even if they provide information without any intention to make money.
Decide to launch a blog and you must form a publishing company and have a board of directors running things. This would require even the lowliest Italian MySpace account holder to go through the hassle of filing personal details with the national registry of “communication operators” currently only in use by publishing sector professionals.
Italian actor & blogger Beppe Grillo explains on his blog:
The Levi-Prodi law obliges anyone who has a website or a blog to get a publishing company and to have a journalist who is on the register of professionals as the responsible director.
99% would close down.
The lucky 1% still surviving on the Internet according to the Levi-Prodi law would have to respond in the case of the lack of control on defamatory content in accordance with articles 57 and 57 bis of the penal code. Basically almost sure to be in prison.
Unfortunately, The draft of Levi’s Law has already been given the thumbs up by the Council of Ministers and now faces Parliament. It squeaked through its initial approval as part of a package attempting to tidy up Italy’s publishing-related regulations, and requires further approvals before coming into force. Fortunatly, many opponents of the law feel that it is too controversial to pass.
If passed, Levi’s Law would close down most Italian blogs and those that survived would have a fine line to walk to stay off the government’s radar or face jail.
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