Luca Spinelli is a Swiss investigative journalist, columnist and the founder of the legal open source project Oscon. He has written front-page news for La Repubblica, La Stampa, Rizzoli-Corriere della Sera, Wired, Il Manifesto and others.
Career Born in Italy, Spinelli started his journalistic career writing for VNU Business Publications and Feltrinelli. Since the last 2000s, he has been columnist for the newspaper Punto Informatico.Luca Spinelli, Who's sho, 2018 While still a university student, in 2004 he founded Oscon, a legal non-profit and open project committed to spreading an open standard contract and which provides pro bono legal advising. Up to 2018, the contract has been downloaded more than 220.000 times and it is one of the most used in the country.Davide Falanga, Oscon, il contratto open source , OneOpenSource, 2008Pierluigi Emmulo, Contratto per realizzazione siti Web e programmi, WebmasterPoint, 2008Oscon, Two hundred thousand copies for two millions eyes, 2013Maria Eleonora Pisu, Professione Ghostwriter, Bruno Editore, 2014.
During his career, Spinelli has conducted investigations, which gave rise to widespread debates. In July 2007, MPs Franco Grillini and Cinzia Dato appended one of Spinelli's investigations about copyrightAnna Masera, L'ultima follia? Essere costretti a rivendicare il "diritto di panorama", La Stampa, 18. February 2008 to a parliamentary inquiry towards vice-Prime Minister Francesco Rutelli, promoting a reform of the legislation on copyright.Parliamentary inquiry by MPs Franco Grillini After this investigation, the lack of freedom of panorama in the Italian legal system has been considered a matter of factLaukyte, Migle. "A Rawlsian Perspective on Copyright and Justice in Italy“, 5th International Conference on Information Law and Ethics, Greece, 2012Sapienza University of Rome, Copyright in Italy, 2013University of Pisa, Laboratorio di scrittura, 2012 and a subject of discussion.Resta, Giorgio. “Diritti esclusivi e nuovi beni immateriali“, Utet Giuridica, 2010. A. Gaudenzi, Il nuovo diritto d’autore, Maggioli, 2012. In the same year, Spinelli's reporting on a security bill promoted by the Government, caused its correction during the Council of Ministers of Italy.Punto Informatico, Rome: chatting is not a crime (anymore), December 2007 In 2008, his investigation on the Government budget revealed the intent of the Government to establish public funding for record labels, causing debates with deputy Gabriella Carlucci and the FIMI's president.Punto Informatico, Public funding for record labels, December 2007 The same year, Spinelli wrote an investigation, cited by Sergio Rizzo in his bestseller Rapaci (Rizzoli), about the institutional web portal Italia.it, in which he revealed the waste of public money. Later, his investigation on a bill by Ricardo Franco Levi led to a wide strike promoted by Beppe Grillo,Punto Informatico, Reactions to Ddl Levi, 2008Beppe Grillo, Free Blogger, November 2008 criticisms by journalists and politicians (Gad Lerner, Vincenzo Vita, Giuseppe Giulietti, Pino Scaccia), and eventually caused the withdrawal of the bill.
Subsequently, Spinelli drew up with lawyer G. Scorza the bill "Give a meaning to the degradation" concerning a modification of the Italian copyright law, which was supported by the MPs Bruno Mellano, Mauro Bulgarelli, Elio Veltri and others.Diritto.it, Give a meaning to the degratation, 2008 The bill was scheduled to be discussed to the Chamber of Deputies, but the fall of the Government halted the process. It was supported again by the Radical Party in the late 2010.Radicali.it, Anche l'Italia segua l'esempio della Gran Bretagna nell'impegno sul fair use, 2010 The following year, Spinelli's journalistic investigation „La Camera manda avanti il Ddl anti-blog“ was nominated for the 30th Ischia International Journalism Award.XXX International Ischia Awards , 30. April 2009, Nova100 – Il Sole 24 Ore For Swiss newspapers, he released the news of the fall of Switzerland into the gray list of tax heavens,LaNotizia, Tax heavens list, 2009 and subsequently commented most of the tax treaty between Switzerland and other nations (USA, United Kingdom, Mexico, Qatar, India...). In June 2015 he published with Wired a broad investigation about privacy management laws over the world.Wired, Cookie Law, come funziona all’estero? Afterwards, Spinelli worked with the Creative Commons group for the translation into Italian of the Creative Commons 4.0 licenses, published in the late 2017.Sarah Pearson, Annuncia la traduzione 4.0 della licenza in Italiano!, Creativecommons.org
Amongst the Italian expert on accessibility, he was a selected member of the SIE (Italian associate of the International Ergonomics Association), and has been publishing educational articles and essays. He has lectured and provided scientific and legal consulting to the University of Genoa. He is also author of interviews with minister Antonio Di Pietro, scientist Corrado Böhm and activist Ludwig Minelli.
Awards and nominations Year Work Award Result 2009 journalistic investigation „La Camera manda avanti il Ddl anti-blog“ Ischia International Journalism Award
References
External links Luca Spinelli, Official website