MILAN, Italy: Italy's top criminal court has stated that downloading computer files containing films, music or software is not a crime if not done for profit, but analysts said Monday they expected the ruling's impact to be muted.

The court's decision, issued earlier this month but reported over the weekend by the Italian media, overturns earlier convictions against two former students from the Turin Politechnic Institute who set up a peer-to-peer network in 1994 that was shut down within months. They were found guilty of illegal duplication and given a one-year sentence, which was reduced to three months on appeal, defense lawyer Carlo Blengino said.

The top criminal court in Rome threw out the convictions, ruling that it was not a crime to download computer files from so-called peer-to-peer networks — used for sharing digitalized files among computer users over high-speed broadband connections — if there was no financial gain.

Analysts noted that violating a copyright, for example by breaking a copyright protection, remained illegal even if downloading the material had been decriminalized.

"I consider this sentence as a very intermediate step in clarifying what is legal and what is not legal," said analyst Carlo Alberto Carnevale Maffe, the president of Assodigitale, a think-tank on digital technology. "This sentence marks an important step in that peer-to-peer per se is not an illegal activity. What stays and remains illegal is copyright infringement by cracking copyright files, and distributing it for commercial purposes."

That could cover services that charge access or connectivity fees, he said.

While the ruling in essence favors Internet providers, by putting more value on those providing Internet service than those who create the material being traded — be it music or film or software — the impact was mitigated by the fact that broadband penetration lags in Italy, Maffe said.

Tech Analyst Yaap Favier at Forrester Research also said the thorny issue is uploading material for distribution — not downloading. "Offering it for use by others is the problem," he said.

The Italian agency that monitors copyright issues, known by the acronym SIAE, said in a statement that the ruling did not bring any "revolutions" in terms of author's rights because the case predates current legislation calling for a fine for anyone who shares protected material over the Internet without financial gain.

The Associated PressPublished: January 22, 2007

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