The anti-piracy platform Piracy Shield, developed by Lega Serie A and adopted by Agcom with the aim of stopping illegal streaming sites of football matches, has missed the target, blocking one of the most used services by web users.
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Google Drive, the service for storing and sharing data in the cloud, as well as one of YouTube's caches, have been targeted. The news was published by Repubblica.it, which cites the Wired website.
The matter has sparked a hornet's nest of controversy, so much so that Codacons has filed a complaint with the Rome Prosecutor's Office and is requesting the seizure of the Privacy Shield system which caused the blocking of Google Drive last night.
“What happened is extremely serious and represents a dangerous precedent to the detriment of a huge number of individuals,” underlines the association according to which “the fight against piracy is a need that we have always shared.
But the measures to combat illegality cannot lead to incidents like the one that affected Google Drive, a service used by a multitude of subjects (users, companies and professionals), also for study and work reasons, which yesterday remained blocked for hours causing protests and inconveniences".
“For this reason, tomorrow we will file a complaint with the Rome Public Prosecutor's Office so that it opens an investigation into the case aimed at ascertaining possible criminally relevant facts and the related responsibilities, while at the same time evaluating the seizure of the Piracy Shield system – concludes Codacons – if it is not able to adequately screen the sites to be blocked in the fight against piracy, since such a circumstance would represent an immensely more serious solution to the problem”.
How the anti-piracy system works
Piracy Shield was donated by Lega Serie A to Agcom. Broadcasters report to Agcom the sites that illegally transmit their content. This report is forwarded to internet providers who block those addresses.
On Saturday evening, the first address to be banned was the domain used to download files from Google Drive, which stopped working between 19 and 22.15:XNUMX pm.
When the "urgent" report is sent with the current system, the internet provider has no alternatives. But the list often includes domains where the illegal activity relies, and which certainly is neither the only activity, nor the main one of that domain. But being on the list is enough to be blocked.
Hence the need to increase the list of websites that can enter a white list that protects secure sites.
The inconvenience occurred yesterday evening, shortly before Juventus-Lazio began, causing less damage than it could have done on a weekday, when hundreds of thousands of workers use Drive. However, there have been many reports from users of the platform,, used by companies and public institutions.
A similar inconvenience has already occurred in recent months, but the Piracy Shield in the first months of use has still allowed many pirate sites to be blocked and, also in the wake of these numbers, the Parliament is evaluating a further crackdown on piracy.
Two amendments by FI and FdI to the Omnibus Decree, approved by the Senate Committee, provide that VPN and DNS service providers will also be among the subjects to whom Agcom can order to disable access to illegally distributed content; furthermore, network access service providers are obliged to immediately report “criminally relevant conduct” to the judicial authority or the judicial police, under penalty of “imprisonment of up to one year”.
The anti-piracy platform will also be able to block IP addresses even when the illegal activity is only “prevalent” and not exclusive. The rules have already provoked protests from telephone operators, who consider them too drastic.
Deputy Giulia Pastorella, vice-president of Azione, announced that she will present an urgent question to the government and will ask that Agcom be summoned to the Transport and Telecommunications Commission. “This is yet another unacceptable, arbitrary and senseless block that has come in recent months,” he says. “What must happen for Agcom to suspend the platform? Must some vital service go offline?”
Similar protests also come from M5S with the deputy Antonio Caso and from the PD with the senator Lorenzo Basso.
Article published on 20 October 2024 - 20:11
