Demonoid is no longer accessible in Italy after the Italian Regulatory Authority ordered local ISPs to block access to the site following a complaint from Sony, Warner, and Universal .
As TorrentFreak reports, Italy gave the regulator increased power, thus allowing the decision to block the website without any kind of legal review.
As you may know, after almost two years of inactivity, the Demonoid tracker came back online earlier this year. In the time it's been back online, it's managed to rebuild some community and is once again collecting the millions of visitors it had in its heyday each month. This has caught the attention of various copyright holders.
FIMI, an anti-piracy group representing Sony, Warner and Universal, complained to AGCOM (the Italian Communications Regulatory Authority) last month and managed to take action against Demonoid after it was deemed to be infringing on copyright. As usual, instead of asking ISPs to block access to individual works that were infringing, such as those by Italian artists represented by the aforementioned companies, the regulator proceeded to block the entire site. This is a stance we have seen from many copyright holders and their representatives, such as when Google was asked to remove pages from the site rather than links to the infringing content.
AGCOM's powers are being questioned by consumer groups.
Fulvio Sarzana, a lawyer specializing in Internet and copyright issues, spoke to TorrentFreak. He believes the new order to block Demonoid is too broad, because the decision issued by the Court of Rome refers to illegal content only, and not to the entire site.
“At Demonoid they would do well to challenge the measure that appears to be illegal,” Mr. Sarzana encouraged the website’s administrators, adding that AGCOM’s procedures may well be unconstitutional.
In fact, there have been very few consumer groups that have asked the court to review the legality of AGCOM's decisions. The Court of Rome forwarded these complaints to the Constitutional Court, which will examine and decide whether AGCOM's procedures violate the right to freedom of expression and freedom of speech.
Until then, however, AGCOM will continue to condemn businesses as usual, and will likely block more websites in the coming months and until a decision is made by the Constitutional Court.
