The top criminal court in Italy has made an interesting ruling which could enable users and operators of P2P networks to avoid legal action if they share copyright content via their networks without licence. The court was hearing an appeal from two former students of Turin Polytechnic Institute, both prolific file swappers, who ran a P2P network for a short time in the mid 90s. After authorities closed down their P2P operation a lower Italian court found them guilty of the crime of 'illegal duplication', passing a one year jail sentence. But that conviction has been overturned on the grounds that file sharing of copyright content can only be considered a crime according to current Italian law if the people doing the sharing are profiting from the activity, which the defendants in the current case did not.
Although a victory for advocates of unlicensed P2P, it is unclear just how landmark this ruling really is, even within the Italian jurisdiction. Although it means people who use or operate P2P networks without making a profit cannot be convicted for their file sharing, it doesn't tell us whether a civil lawsuit for damages pursued by the record labels (the route the vast majority of anti-P2P legal action has taken) would be any less effective than before. Italian record industry trade body also tried to play down the significance of the ruling by stressing it was already lobbying government to introduce new laws which would mean the defence used in the latest case, ie no profit no crime, would no longer stand up in court.