The Court of Rome has condemned Facebook in a lawsuit with Mediaset. For the first time in Italy, Mark Zuckerberg’s social network has been found guilty of copyright infringement and defamation, offences committed by hosting unauthorized links on the pages of its platform.
A controversy with a moderate economic value, but crucial for the rights it intended to protect, constituting a turning point in Italian jurisprudence to protect copyright, as stated by Mediaset. The episode debated dates back to seven years ago, when some anonymous users opened a Facebook page dedicated to a cartoon broadcast by Italy 1, Kilari. The links on the page referred to copyrighted content illegally uploaded on YouTube, and hosted heavy insults addressed to the interpreter of the theme song of the animated series. Despite the warnings, Facebook decided not to remove the contents and links incriminated, thus inducing Mediaset to resort to the Judiciary.
