Project Gutenberg taken down by italian magistrate

[mdp]

The website of Project Gutenberg, gutenberg.org , was made unavailable in italy by order of judge Anna Maria Gavoni following an "investigation" from a branch of italian Guardia di Finanza.

As one can see from skimming the attachment, they identified a number of websites which are apparently related to download of recent magazines. An "odd one out" is there: Project Gutenberg.

The order was given on 11 May 2020.

The reasons for hitting Project Gutenberg specifically are, it seems, unspecified. Leaving a strong suspect of the lowest possible reason.

[SteveEisenberg]

The U.S. Project Gutenberg has many books that are still under copyright in Italy, due to Italy going by Life + 70, and the U.S. having a 95 years after publication rule.

However, I don’t know if that was the rationale.

[mdp]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

The U.S. Project Gutenberg has many books that are still under copyright in Italy, due to Italy going by Life + 70, and the U.S. having a 95 years after publication rule.

However, I don’t know if that was the rationale.

There is a telling precedent with Germany. Lawyers of the copyright owners of Thomas Mann contacted Project Gutenberg requesting the removal of a few titles. The Project decided to exclude IP addresses from Germany (discarded ways had been to create a more complex infrastructure or to deny rightful access to others, such as users in the USA).

In this case: italy has identified a few dozen sites that apparently offered links to recent magazines, and added to them one of the oldest and most prestigious cultural preservation projects, without offering any comment or explanation - all explanations seem to me relevant to the distribution of magazines. The Project was apparently not contacted by italy and issued a statement according to which "they were reported" that the site became inaccessible from the italian territory. The document and the actions give the idea of the italian administration not having the slightest idea of what they denied access to. It reinforces this impression that to the best of my searches, no explanation was given to its citizens on why a renowned cultural milestone of humanity was censored.