Filesharing is now legal in Italy (as long as it's not for profit)

Italian court says copyright infringement is not a crime- Unauthorized downloads are fine if no profit is made

ROME — In a blow to Italy's ongoing campaign against digital copyright infringement, a high level Italian court has ruled that the unauthorized downloading of copyrighted movies, music, and video games is not a crime if the downloader does not profit from the action.

In 2005, a court in Turin sentenced two men to jail time and issued them several hundred euros in fines for taking control of a computer server at the Turin Polytechnic Institute and using it to store and distribute various copies of video games, films and CDs. Last week, an Italian Supreme Court judge overturned the sentence saying the act wasn't criminal because the duo saw no commercial gain.

The ruling comes at a difficult time as Italian authorities continue to struggle against film and music infringement from groups and individuals.

The Silvio Berlusconi government in 2003 passed one of Europe's toughest copyright laws, modeled on the EU's copyright directive, passing down stiff fines for commercial infringers and individual downloaders. But, critics lament, the law is rarely enforced.

FIMI, Italy's trade group for professional musicians, on Monday downplayed last week's court decision saying the Turin judgment will have little impact on the current anti-infringement law as the two men were charged under an older, weaker law.

Still, as Italian media observers point out, last week's legal decision is one of the few to have reached the Italian Supreme Court.