Italy’s ‘Piracy Shield’ Creating Real Problems As VPNs Start Turning Away Italian Users
from the that's-not-helping dept
Back in October, Walled Culture wrote about the grandly named “Piracy Shield”. This is Italy’s new Internet blocking system, which assumes people are guilty until innocent, and gives the copyright industry a disproportionate power to control what is available online, no court orders required. Piracy Shield went live in December, and has just issued its first blocking orders. But a troubling new aspect of Piracy Shield has emerged, reported here by TorrentFreak:
A document detailing technical requirements of Italy’s Piracy Shield anti-piracy system confirms that ISPs are not alone in being required to block pirate IPTV services. All VPN and open DNS services must also comply with blocking orders, including through accreditation to the Piracy Shield platform. Google has already agreed to dynamically deindex sites and remove infringing adverts.
This is no mere theoretical threat. The VPN (Virtual Private Network) service AirVPN has just announced that it will no longer accept users residing in Italy. As AirVPN explains:
The list of IP addresses and domain names to be blocked is drawn up by private bodies authorised by AGCOM (currently, for example, Sky and DAZN). These private bodies enter the blocking lists in a specific platform. The blocks must be enforced within 30 minutes of their first appearance by operators offering any service to residents of Italy.
There is no judicial review and no review by AGCOM. The block must be enforced inaudita altera parte [without hearing the other party] and without the possibility of real time refusal, even in the case of manifest error. Any objection by the aggrieved party can only be made at a later stage, after the block has been imposed.
As a result, AirVPN says it can no longer offer its service in Italy:
The above requirements are too burdensome for AirVPN, both economically and technically. They are also incompatible with AirVPN’s mission and would negatively impact service performance. They pave the way for widespread blockages in all areas of human activity and possible interference with fundamental rights (whether accidental or deliberate). Whereas in the past each individual blockade was carefully evaluated either by the judiciary or by the authorities, now any review is completely lost. The power of those private entities authorized to compile the block lists becomes enormous as the blocks are not verified by any third party and the authorized entities are not subject to any specific fine or statutory damage for errors or over-blocking.
That’s a good summary of all that is wrong with Piracy Shield. Companies can compile block lists without any constraint or even oversight. If the blocks are unjustified, there are no statutory damages, which will obviously encourage overblocking. And proving they are unjustified is a slow and complex process, and only takes place after the block has been effected.
What is particularly troubling here is that Italian residents are now losing access to a popular VPN as a result of this new law. In a world where privacy threats from companies and governments are constantly increasing, VPNs are a vital tool, and it is crucial to have a range of them to choose from. The fact that AirVPN has been forced to discontinue this service for people in Italy is a further demonstration of how here, as elsewhere, copyright is evidently regarded by the authorities as more important than fundamental human rights such as privacy and security.
Follow me @glynmoody on Mastodon and on Bluesky. Originally posted to Walled Culture.
Filed Under: censorship, copyright, guilty until proven innocent, italy, piracy shield
Companies: airvpn
Comments on “Italy’s ‘Piracy Shield’ Creating Real Problems As VPNs Start Turning Away Italian Users”
Government expert regulators usually know best in modern democracies — and are generally superior to the vagaries of greedy private businesses — so give this noble ‘Piracy Shield’ a chance to evolve and fully protect Italian citizens from internet predation
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The government isn’t regulating….
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wrong, that government is forcibly intervening between buyers and sellers in a legitimate business arrangement
overall comment was sarcasm, anyway
Anyone post http://www.governo.it for blocking yet?
Re: www.governo.it
That’s behind Akamai, and CloudFlare has already been blocked at least once, so it’s only a matter of time until that’s blocked too.
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Honestly, the Cloudfare debacle should really be the focus of the article here, since it demonstrates how ass-backwards Italy’s rules here are. Losing VPN access is bad; losing access to hundreds of thousands of websites with no recourse aside from the whims of the agency in charge of blocking is a frickin’ disaster.
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Nah, if you really want to hit ’em where it hurts, you gotta block the political campaigns. And do it in late April to early May so they don’t have a chance to appeal before the June 8-9 elections.
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^ This.
If the VPN provider is not in Italy they don’t have to obey Italian laws
If I were still running the VPN server I was I would tell the Italian government to flag off.
Is Italy again turning fascist?
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Hard to say, while copyright does tend to cause an effect similar to serious brain damage in politicians and judges that doesn’t necessarily make the jump to fascism.
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Not as bad as, say, Hungary. They’ve been surging in Italy same as the rest of the West though.
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Well, if you count Mussolini smiling up from Hell, then yes, Italy is once again becoming fascist, per his dream.
That is, given that fascism is the merger of corporation and state interests. Such as we see here, a perfect example of how freedoms, specifically freedom of choice and freedom from tyranny via of an open and fair judicial system, are trampled on with glee, just like #45’s Sturm und Drang hold over the Republican party.
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Ruth Ben-ghiat (authoritarian scholar) just wrote a post about this last month, that’s a very helpful overview of the current situation in Italy:
“How fascism is being normalized in Italy”
https://lucid.substack.com/p/are-fascist-salutes-a-crime-in-italy
No way this is in line with EU law but we will see.
I mean, that’s not even the worst of it. Torrentfreak’s also covered how Piracy Shield blocked thousands of legal sites in a sweeping campaign not seen since the likes of SOPA. Cherry on top was the regulators calling the antipiracy system “perfect”, and that claims of legit sites being blocked were “fake news” – only for shit to really start going down as volunteer organizations and schools realized they’d lost access.
It looks like the regulators in charge of the system are now quietly hoping that the outrage eventually dies down, but this is exactly why copyright entities do not deserve the benefit of the doubt despite their claims to the contrary. They’ve fucked up one too many times to be trusted with that benefit.
The Piracy Shield must be run by the Mafia, because just like a Mob hit, there’s a lot of spray and pray, and poor waiters carrying breadsticks getting caught in the crossfire.
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I’d argue the opposite viewpoint. The Mafia knows how to run a business, and they also know not to kill the goose that lays golden eggs. Only when their business model is threatened do they go all-out in defending the status-quo.
If you want an example of spray-and-pray, you need only look at our House of Representatives since the Republicans took over last year. Substitute cutting funds from the Women, Infants & Children program for waiters-with-breadsticks, and you have a damningly clear indication of how not to run a business, let alone an entire country. (And that’s after you’ve watched the very same Republicans demanding forced birth from all women. Talk about hypocrisy…)
Unchecked and out of control.
Just a few days ago, TF also reported that they blocked a single IP address used by hundreds of sites under Cloudflare. Many of which aren’t even related to any live sports.
This is the very consequence of what happens if you make it too easy and to lower the bar so low to block a website. It was forewarned with SOPA/PIPA in the U.S in 2011-12.
The best way that the Italians can best Piracy Shield is with Privacy Shield
All thanks to the USA
This was all brought about by the greedy fascist censorious totalitarian USA