Piracy linking site owner gets sentenced to jailtime

The former owner and operator of a piracy index (linking) site has been sentenced to five months jailtime in Italy.

Additionally, the 43-year old, Giampiero Mantellassi, will have to pay a 5000 euro fine and 15,000 euros in compensation to the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers (SIAE)

The site was Vedogratis.it, and it linked to movies that were available illegally on streaming portals. The site first opened in 2008, and authorities say it generated ad revenue from over 50,000 daily users.

Mantellassi claimed the site did nothing wrong as it did not host any of the content, but apparently that argument did not work.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 1 Apr 2013 9:34

ruff469

So basically they hit him with a trafficking charge. In the US if you stand on a street corner and a drug addict asks you where to buy some Meth and the police see you point in a specific direction you can get hit with a trafficking charge. All you did was point in the direction. That's a crazy ruling

1.4.2013 12:21 #1

Bozobub

I agree that the ruling is excessive, if not crazy, but you're going to have to provide a citation of anyone ever hit with a trafficking charge in that manner, ruff469. All anyone has to do to beat it in court, after all, is to say, "I thought he asked me for the nearest {bathroom, post office, restaurant, etc.}," after all.

For a cop to even try this, he already hated you, or otherwise had his eye on you.

1.4.2013 12:43 #2

thepohl

In America he probably would have got 5 YEARS.

Concordia res parvae crescent

2.4.2013 08:18 #3

mike.m

This is ridiculous, if this is the case, then shouldn't search engines such as Google, be fined as well? I can type in "Name of movie" + torrent in Google, and get results linking to piracy sites, the same principle applies here, the only difference is that Google "links" more than just piracy sites.

2.4.2013 20:27 #4

megadunderhead

that is totally crazy there are hundreds of people in italy that are watching streaming videos from youtube to even illegal sites and there not getting busted but you busted one person for pointing where to go man you suck

3.4.2013 08:21 #5

SeventhSon

Tabloid newspapers here in the UK have recently been publishing shock/horror articles about the Silk Road website including details about how people are using Tor software to access it and using Bitcoin to pay for stuff. Basically everything you need to know. Are they guilty of trafficking?

3.4.2013 10:34 #6

eljay

Originally posted by mike.m: This is ridiculous, if this is the case, then shouldn't search engines such as Google, be fined as well? I can type in "Name of movie" + torrent in Google, and get results linking to piracy sites, the same principle applies here, the only difference is that Google "links" more than just piracy sites. I think the difference here is, that Google links to a link to a movie. Not directly to the movie.

8.4.2013 12:40 #7

Bozobub

"I think the difference here is, that Google links to a link to a movie. Not directly to the movie." That makes absolutely no sense. I can find the very same link to the actual site that's streaming the infringing video with both Google and this poor sod's site. The difference is only in that Mr. Mantellassi had an easier-to-use interface for finding those links ^^' .

Edit �> Of course, this is also exactly why Google has been censoring one metric f*ckton of links, of late.

8.4.2013 13:05 #8

Jemborg

So they went after him, not the actual streaming sites... jeez.

Its a lot easier being righteous than right.

8.4.2013 23:11 #9

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