Italy: Anti-piracy initiative hasn’t increased subs
January 23, 2025
From Branislav Pekic in Rome
Italy’s anti-piracy initiative, Piracy Shield, has blocked thousands of illegal streaming websites, but has not led to a rise in subscribers for legitimate platforms.
Data from Italy’s Communications Authority (AgCom), which oversees the blocking system, shows viewership and subscriber numbers for DAZN remained stagnant in 2024.
Brian Turnbow, CEO of CDLAN Italy, a cloud and data centre operator, analysed AgCom’s quarterly data and the impact of the anti-piracy programme on legal streaming providers such as DAZN, the country’s Serie A football rights holder.
His findings, published on LinkedIn, show no increase in DAZN users or watch time in 2024 compared to 2023, despite thousands of domains and IPs being blocked. Furthermore, 2024 numbers are lower than 2022 figures, before Piracy Shield was implemented.
Meanwhile, DAZN’s subscription price has increased, from €30.99 to €34.99, a factor not included in AgCom’s reporting.
Piracy Shield was officially implemented in Italy in February 2023, to tackle piracy of live sports streaming within 30 minutes. Despite some initial problems with excessive blocking, authorities and many rights holders consider the operation a great success.
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