Italy approves changes to anti-piracy regulations
July 31, 2023
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Italy’s Communications Authority (AgCom) has approved changes to the Regulation on online copyright concerning the fight against illegal access to live sports content.
The amended anti-piracy regulations provide the Italian regulator with the power to issue “dynamic injunctions,” on the basis of the provisions of the Recommendation of the European Commission on the fight against online piracy of May 4th 2023.
The new measures will make it possible to disable access to pirated content in the first 30 minutes of the broadcast of the event, by blocking DNS resolution of domain names and blocking the routing of network traffic to IP addresses uniquely intended for illegal activities.
With the provision, which enters into force on 8 August, the Authority will also be able to intervene to stop the pirated broadcasting of all live events, including non-sports ones.
According to AgCom Commissioner Massimiliano Capitanio, with this change, the Italian regulating body “places itself at the forefront in the European panorama in the fight against online piracy.”
Within 30 days from the date of entry into force of the law, the Authority, in collaboration with the National Cybersecurity Agency, will convene a technical table with service providers, ISPs, rights holders, content, audiovisual media service providers, and associations responsible for the protection of copyright and related rights.
The goal is to define the technical and operational requirements of the tools necessary to allow the disabling of domain names or IP addresses.
The changes to the existing regulations come at an important stage in negotiations for the allocation of TV rights to the Serie A. Both the Serie A and broadcasters had urged the Italian government to pass tougher anti-piracy legislation, claiming that the phenomenon threatens their business model.