Italy’s Piracy Shield anti-piracy system reportedly launched last week, albeit in limited fashion.
Whether the platform had any impact on pirate IPTV providers offering the big game last Friday is unclear but plans supporting a full-on assault are pressing ahead.
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When lawmakers gave Italy’s new blocking regime the green light during the summer, the text made it clear that blocking instructions would not be limited to regular ISPs. The relevant section (Paragraph 5 Art. 2) for reference below;
The document issued by AGCOM acts as a clear reminder of the above and specifically highlights that VPN and DNS providers are no exception.
“[A]ll parties in any capacity involved in the accessibility of illegally disseminated content – and therefore also, by way of example and not limitation – VPN and open DNS service providers, will have to execute the blocks requested by the Authority [AGCOM] including through accreditation to the Piracy Shield platform or otherwise implementing measures that prevent the user from reaching that content,” the notice reads.
Whether the DNS provider requirement will be affected by Cloudflare’s recent win over Sony in Germany is unclear. The decision was grounded in EU law and Cloudflare has already signaled that it will push back against any future blocking demands.
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The relevant section of the new law is in some ways even more broad when it comes to search engines such as Google. Whether they are directly involved in accessibility or not, they’re still required to take action.
AGCOM suggests that Google understands its obligations and is also prepared to take things further. The company says it will deindex offending platforms from search and also remove their ability to advertise.
“Since this is a dynamic blocking, the search engine therefore undertakes to perform de-indexing of all websites/telematic addresses that are the subject of subsequent reports that can also be communicated by rights holders accredited to the platform,” AGCOM writes.
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Source: Piracy Shield: IPTV Blocking Orders Apply to All DNS & VPN Providers * TorrentFreak
Wow. This means we can force an ISP, VPN provider, DNS host and Google to shut down shit without explanation or recourse within 30 minutes. That’s pretty totalitarian.
Robin Edgar
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