Pirate party or partito pirata?

The Partito Pirata (Pirate party) strives hard to allow free content distribution and fights against the law dominance that defends copyright. Ironically, the same party made use of a similar law, namely the Industrial Property Code, in order to defend itself against another party, Marco Marsili’s Pirate Party. The issue was solved in a Court of Milan, a specialized sector that deals with industrial and intellectual property, which, both on appeal and on complaint, granted to Athos Gualazzi’s association the right to use the name Partito pirata and its flag symbol. The Judge has therefore denied Marsili from using said name, but also the name Pirate Party and similar names, forbidding its use as a domain name as well. The result is that Marsili’s domains are currently closed and there is only one pirate party in Italy. It remains to be seen whether this event will prompt a reflection about the important of industrial and intellectual property rights or everything will pass unnoticed. Ultimately, even if the point at issue was a trademark and not a copyright matter, it still was about defending an exclusive property right.