A new law has been passed by the Italian Senate that aims to block pirate streaming sources and IPTV Services.
The new legislation intends to remove live events featuring “illegally disseminated content, including by adopting urgent precautionary measures”.
While details of this process are still not fully clear, it seems that the Italian Authorities for Communications or AGCOM will have ultimate oversight.
We want to know what you think of Italy’s latest site-blocking measures. Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!
Italy is no stranger to online piracy battles, as we have seen authorities and courts take measures to shut down these entities in the past.
Italian Court Orders Cloudflare to Block Popular Torrent Sites
Italian Police Fine IPTV Users After Tracking IP Addresses
IPTV Subscribers in Italy Facing Fines and Possible Court Hearings
The newest bill passed through the Senate, however, looks to stop illegal broadcasts directly in their tracks through swift blocking measures.
Ultimately, Service Providers will be given the authority to disable access to illegal streams by blocking traffic to IP Addresses associated with broadcasting.
Here is a direct quote from the bill regarding the means that will be taken to block illicit content.
More specifically, AGCOM can order service providers, including network access providers, to disable access to illegal content by blocking DNS resolution of domain names and blocking traffic routing network to IP addresses uniquely intended for illegal activities. When adopting this provision, AGCOM also orders the blocking of any other future domain name, subdomain, where technically possible, or IP address , to anyone attributable, including changes in the name or simple declination or extension (so-called top level domain), which allows access to the same illegally disseminated contents or to contents of the same nature..
The legislation goes on mention live broadcasts including sporting events which will be removed swiftly with similar blocking techniques.
In these cases, AGCOM and Service Providers will have the ability to remove these streams and IPTV Broadcasts without a full legal process.
AGCOM is given major authority in these instances and can ultimately demand any ISP, search engine, or other online entity to remove the content immediately.
The disabling measures taken ( paragraph 5 ) are immediately notified by AGCOM:
network access service providers;
to search engine managers and information society service providers involved in any capacity in the accessibility of the website or illegal services;
to the European Union Internet Referral Unit of Europol;
to the person who requested the adoption of the measure.
Upon receipt of the notification, the network access service providers, the operators of search engines and the information society service providers involved in any capacity in the accessibility of the website or illegal services carry out the Authority’s provision without any delay and in any case within 30 minutes of notification..
This means that an illegal broadcast will be shut down within 30 minutes of AGCOM receiving notification of the stream.
Any information received from these blocking measures will then be sent to the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Court of Rome for further examination.
Ultimately, this will likely be the identification of IP Addresses associated with broadcasting or viewing the content deemed illegal.
Not all of the details of the new bill have been ironed out yet including the technical requirements and tools necessary for disabling these broadcasts.
It is also envisaged that, within 30 days of the entry into force of the law , AGCOM , in collaboration with the ACN – National Cybersecurity Agency, will convene a technical table with the operators, with the task of defining the technical requirements and operational tools necessary for disabling provided for in Article 2.
In this context, within the maximum term of six months from the convening of the technical table , a single technological platform must be set up that allows automated operation to carry out the disabling measures.
As noted, a “technical table” will be formed within 30 days of the bill being put into law to ultimately determine how these processes and site-blocking measures will be deployed.
You can read the entire bill from the Senato della Repubblica by following the link below.
Senate Act n. 621 – Prevention and Suppression of Unlawful Dissemination of Copyrighted Content
Although we have seen numerous instances of site-blocking measures across the globe, the latest bill from Italy’s Senate seems to be the most in-depth and strict.
It will be interesting to see how these tactics are deployed and whether or not they work.
This story was first published by TorrentFreak.
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