By Alberto Bellan for The 1709 Blog Upon claim brought by some consumer associations, an Italian Administrative Court ('TAR') has referred the Italian Communication Authority's ('AGCOM') Regulation on Online Copyright [on which see <http://ipkitten.blogspot.it/2013/12/italian-communication-authority-issues. html> here] to the Constitutional Court, seeking clarification as to whether administrative blocking injunctions of websites are in line with some constitutional principles like freedom of expression, economic freedom and proportionality. Entered into force on 1 April 2014, the AGCOM Regulation allows AGCOM itself, without intervention of a judicial authority, to order the Italian mere conduits to block a website that is hosting infringing content after a very short administrative procedure.
From the short extract of the decision that this blogger had the chance to read, however, it would appear that the TAR's referral goes far beyond that. Indeed, along with the AGCOM Regulation, the Court also questioned the constitutionality of 14(3), 15(2) and 16(3) of the Legislative Decree No 70/2003. The latter transposed into the Italian system Articles 12(3), 13(2) and 14(3) of the <http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:32000L0031&fr om=EN> E-Commerce Directive, which in turn allow "a court or administrative authority" to require mere conduits/caching/hosting providers to "terminate or prevent" infringements. What the Italian Constitutional Court would be called to consider, then, is whether and to within which limits the whole E-Commerce Directive's system of notice and take down is in line with those three constitutional principles (freedom of speech, economic freedom and proportionality).
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