2024 began with great news for the Italian television sector. If the new year was supposed to bring with it the arrival of DVB-T2 digital terrestrial for Rai channels, the failure to update the service contract forced the state TV to postpone this essential step, also following pressure from the managers of Viale Mazzini who highlighted how millions of families are still without audiovisual devices capable of catching the new signal.
In a context of profound uncertainty, however, there is a fixed point: on 3 February 2024, with Lecce-Fiorentina, Piracy Shield was inaugurated, the anti-pezzotto platform which aims to undermine a continuously growing phenomenon in Italy which causes not only damage to the national economy but which also represents a source of income for criminal organisations.
IPTV and Pezzotto on the rise: will Piracy Shield be effective?
As always, the Federation for the Protection of Audiovisual and Multimedia Content Industries (FAPAV) took a snapshot of the IPTV and Pezzotto phenomenon which, in an investigation published in 2023, highlighted how the spread of these illegal methods of access to audiovisual content protected by copyright is growth.
In this case, compared to 2021, 30 million more acts were recorded, with a +26% relating exclusively to live sporting events (such as football matches). FAPAV highlights how the increase in live sports has been exponential when compared to the similar phenomenon for TV series and fiction but still lower than films, which still represent the most widespread content today with 35% of audiovisual piracy.
It is precisely from this snapshot that the desire, even of the institutions, to strengthen the conflict not only towards the operators of the IPTV networks, but also towards the end users who, at negligible prices (even 10 euros per month), have the possibility to access an almost boundless audience of content from Sky, DAZN, Netflix, Disney+ and all other paid platforms.
In concert with the pressure coming from the football Government, the Senate approved the new crackdown against IPTV and Pezzotto which gave new powers to AGCOM for the deactivation of content access services, also blocking DNS resolution and routing of network traffic to IP addresses, but also strengthened penalties.
A tightening that was applauded by the football clubs, who see Senator Claudio Lotito as their first representative in Parliament as president and owner of Lazio, and which could lead – in the long term given that exactly the opposite happened in the short term – to a reduction in the cost of season tickets to access Serie A matches.
The statements by the CEO of the Lega Calcio according to which Serie A season tickets would be too expensive due to IPTV and Pezzotto have caused a lot of discussion.
In a context in which we are talking about a loss of 350 million euros per year and 3 million subscribers to illegal IPTVs (equal to 6% of the Italian population), here is the Piracy Shield platform.
Piracy Shield: how it works and what it is
With a press release published by AGCOM, which arrived in parallel with the resolution, the Authority announced the definition of the technical and operational requirements for the operation of Piracy Shield, the platform which will have the aim of blocking websites that illicitly broadcast live sporting events.
Telephone operators will have until January 31, 2024 to become accredited and then proceed with the application – when necessary – of these blocks. The delays (activation was scheduled for December 8th on the occasion of Juventus-Napoli) were linked not to Piracy Shield malfunctions but to some technical and legal aspects that AGCOM and the provider had to face.
Thanks to the new powers conferred by Parliament on the Authority, the Guarantor will have the possibility to impose the blocking of websites (with related DNS) by all operators in real time.
An assist also came from Google: the main search engine has communicated its willingness to collaborate with AGCOM and has developed a procedure that will lead to the removal of illegal websites from search engines as well as the advertisements present within them, which they represent the main source of income for managers.
In the resolution, AGCOM explains that Piracy Shield will allow the “disabling of domain names or IP addresses within thirty minutes of reporting”, with the collaboration of ISPs. Once the report arrives on the platform, the Authority will order the providers to block the reported addresses, including VPN and Alternative DNS service providers.
But let’s take an example: DAZN uploads an IP address to Piracy Shield, with related evidence certifying the violation (a central aspect to protect broadcasters and operators from possible legal problems). At this point, the platform will create a ticket with all the information indicated by the copyright owner, visible to the accredited telephone operators, who will have 30 minutes to proceed with the blocking and prevent access by users. end users.
Piracy Shield is also designed to automate the process, but it is not clear whether this possibility will be activated immediately.
While waiting for large-scale implementation, Piracy Shield has already shown its potential and proceeded with the first automatic block in 30 minutes in the testing phase. As announced by AIIP (the Italian Internet Provider Association which includes medium-sized ISPs), in fact, the operators managed to complete the first automated block.
Finally, on February 5th, the feedback relating to the first day of commissioning arrived: in the morning it was confirmed that Piracy Shield worked correctly during Lecce Fiorentina and the first blocks were triggered, but we are waiting to discover the results obtained during the big match of the same day, Inter-Juventus.
The most important test, in addition to Serie A, will be represented by the Champions League, which historically attracts many viewers not only to traditional broadcasters but also to illegal ones.