CANNES, France—Italy's minister of cultural heritage and activities, Lorenzo Ornaghi, is serious about making Italian film a centerpiece of a "Made in Italy" campaign meant to highlight the country's creative abilities as it endeavors to make the country's film industry more competitive globally. In order to do that, however, the country needs to better address digital piracy. Speaking at a press conference in Cannes that also included Italian political and film industry representatives, Ornaghi addressed anti- piracy, saying he liked the French method for dealing with repeat infringers.
In fact, he said Italy was "going to try and pass a law on digital piracy that will be similar to the French one."
According to the Hollywood Reporter, "Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy created the so-called Hadopi government agency to oversee the fight against piracy using a three-strikes approach. Under the regulation, after three piracy warnings, web users are supposed to be taken offline. Hadopi data presented this year said that 6 percent of Internet users in France received a warning for pirating content, but 95 percent of those stopped infringing. Ninety-eight percent of those receiving a third warning stopped piracy."
In addition to getting more aggressive on copyright infringement, Italy is also looking into extending tax incentives for local and foreign productions in the country, and also creating enhanced, "economic incentives and services for international distributors of Italian films."
Currently, the article added, "the market share of Italian movies in the country stands at about 40 percent, with 150 films produced in 2011, up from 142 in 2010."
