the Network: a symphony on freedoms

This is a really hard time for Italy, and economic downfall and repressive strategies are only two of the symptoms.

La Rete, una sinfonia

In the continuous debate on culture and freedoms, the most powerful italian agencies for the preservation of the current, repressive regulations on copyright and intellectual property are defending policies which constitute a real danger not only to the possibility to invent and promote innovative economic models for arts and creativity, but also represent a real threat for the freedoms of expression in our country.

Some of these rules, for example, provide that: should any copyright holder deem a website is breaking his rights, he can have it shut down without notice. There are subtleties, obviously, but the main point is this: if I think that you are breaking my copyright I can shut down your website.

It is clear how this kind of regulation can be used for all kinds of political purposes, including the creation of widespread, centrally controlled political censorship practices. Let’s remember how Italy has all major media controlled by only one (or two, maximum) enormous subjects.

In the last few days the AGCOM published a set of really threatening regulations.

While doing it the SIAE published a set of 10 really single-minded questions, to ideally (and unrealistically) promote dialogue on the subject.

The questions are obviously made to sustain only one side of the story, and are full of wrong assumptions and fabricated  starting points. This has created an enormous response in the network, with lawyers, journalists, organizations, hackers, artists and entrepreneurs publicly answering and making questions back to the offenders.

Together with Agorà Digitale, AVAAZ, FakePress Publishing and a whole incredible crowd of people supporting our freedoms, we have brought up a resonant, collaborative reply.

You can find it here on

La Rete, Una Sinfonia

the website holds all the questions and answers given on this occasion. It also is planned as a collaborative tool.

All the contributions that are collected are being published in two ways:

• an ebook, which you can download here (click here to download the ebook of the “La Rete, Una Sinfonia”)
• an infoaesthetic visualization shown on top of the pages of the website (for example HERE you can see the infovisualization on the home page)