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Luther Blissett under the Cosh of Law - Destroy the Books! Take down those web sites!hydrarchist writes: "Some readers will be aware that one of the Italian sections of the Luther Blissett Project encountered serious legal problems in 1998, owing to a book they penned named "Let the Children.....". The bad news is that the decision of the court has finally arrived, and they lost. The good news is that they remain undaunted, and the text remians available. You can enjoy the offending text at this location. Some of the individuals formerly involved in LB now animate the Wu Ming Foundation .
Luther Blissett must pay compensation to the public official Lucia Musti and their book "Let the Children Play" must be destroyed. It's an outright victory, obtained by the magistrate that coordinated the investigations into "Satan's children", over the collective name signatory to the text. The civil tribunal found in her favor on all fronts, declaring that two chapters "Satan's children: Anatomy of a Frame Up" and the "The Dimitry case is closed" of the book edited and published by Castelvecchi and distributed on the internet "are damaging to her reputation". The sentence thus specifies the sentencing of the publishing company to the book’s "withdrawal from commerce and the destruction of the copies" ……... present in bookshops or in storage"..... ..... Should Castelvecchi wish to continue publication, they will have to agree to remove the two incriminating paragraphs. These same paragraphs must also be eliminated from the internet site. Another company, ‘Cybercore’, will have to erase from a separate site part of an article that takes up the argument, from the title: "The truth is electric, and is distributed, is distributed, is distributed." The convicted company will also have to publish the sentence in several daily newspapers. Musti was granted damages of 80 million lira. Her lawyer Nicola Alessandri, who acted for her together with Guido Magnesi, declared that the principle objective of the action has been accomplished, namely "the examination of the defamatory content of some of the declarations in the book by Luther Blissett." The lawyer Franco Bambini who defended the signatory of the contract [trans. note - between Castellvechi and Luther Blissett], Roberto Bui, insists that the decision will be contested. Bui believes that Musti's demands have been "unrealistic. The book is present on many other web sites and is ineradicable.
There follows a document issued by the Luther blissett Project in March of 1998 outlining the background to the case and stressing its significance with regard to freedom in the digital sphere. 0. Premise Something serious is happening in Italy. A crackdown recently started in Bologna is going to threaten freedom of speech for Italian netizens. The so-called Musti affair, which we'll sum up in the next paragraph, is a pretext to create a legal precedent, foster (self-)censorship and possibly enforce the (remarkably restrictive) law on the press in the Italian cyberspace. 1. What Is The Musti Affair?
Lucia Musti, vice-District Attorney in Bologna and former Public Prosecutor in a famous trial against an innocuous cult called 'Bambini di Satana' [Children of Satan], sued a 'traditional' publisher (Castelvecchi Edizioni, based in Rome) and two Internet service providers (Cybercore, based in Bologna, and 2mila8, based in L'Aquila) for having published or put into electronic circulation Luther Blissett's book 'Lasciate che i bimbi. "Pedofilia": un pretesto per la caccia alle streghe' (Let The Children... "Pedophilia" as A Pretext for A Witch Hunt]. The book is anti-copyright, thereby it is also freely available on the Web. Lucia Musti wants the book to be banned, all the copies to be destroyed and its electronic versions to be removed from the indicted servers. Moreover, she claims moral damages for 450 million lire (approximately $300,000). She asked the competent magistrate to sequestrate Castelvecchi's accounts and contracts (officially in order to know how many copies were put into circulation - more likely she wants to find out the real names of the authors). The first session of the trial will take place on the 5th of May at the Tribunal of Bologna. 2. The Assault On Internet Service Providers
Musti's 'Atto di Citazione' [certificate of action at law] is a violent assault on the Internet providers whose servers hosted the electronic text of the book. The target is the Internet, its "difference", the features that make it uncomparable to the traditional media, i.e. the horizontality which has granted freedom of speech for those who have no access to the old media and the trans-nationality which has made a lot of wanna-be censors sleepless.
'[In Italy] the responsibility of providers for torts committed via the telematic nets is currently the subject of a lively debate. Two fronts oppose each other: one considers providers equal to publishers, thus responsible [for the contents], the other considers them equal to booksellers and newsvendors, thus non-responsible. 'However, the responsibility of providers can also be demonstrated according to the article 2050 of the Civil Code [which is about responsibility for dangerous activities]. In fact, this rule is enforced not only for the activities regarded as dangerous according to the law on Public Security and other special laws, but also to all the activities which, to the opinion of the competent judge, can intrinsicly be harmful, even if they are as much licit as useful for society.' 'In the case the competent justice decides there are no premises for the enforcement of the article 2050, we can take into consideration the article 2051 [which is about damages caused by things kept in custody], because it is undeniable that A) [providers] have a direct, concrete power on the sites running on their servers, B) [the sued providers] were aware that the contents of Blissett's text were prejudicial to other people's reputation, and could have easily removed them from the sites [...]' 3. We Need International Solidarity
This struggle has an immediate political value, every Italian provider has to take part in the general mobilization. Besides setting limits to freedom of speech, this precedent will extend their legal liability. Luther Blissett Project, Bologna, last week of March 1998
The Italian version of the book remains available in its entirety at the following sites: |
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