Google & Cloudflare Summoned to Explain Their Plans to Defeat Pirate IPTV

Six months after the launch of the Piracy Shield blocking system, it appears that IPTV piracy hasn't been defeated as planned. As a result, telecoms regulator AGCOM has summoned Google and Cloudflare to an official meeting to hear all about their plans to defeat piracy. The Italian Competition and Market Authority recently launched an antitrust investigation against Google, so the meeting in September will take place under dark clouds.

If rightsholders didn’t get everything they asked for when Italy passed tough new anti-piracy legislation in 2023, they still received more than the majority of their counterparts have elsewhere in the EU.

Harsher penalties for both providers of pirated content and those who consume, including fines for simply watching a pirate stream. That was in addition to new site-blocking powers, considerably more aggressive than those seen almost anywhere else, on paper at least.

With the launch of the fledgling Piracy Shield blocking system, the technical cherry on top of a robust legal base, two initial issues were preparing to disappoint.

Targeting Opponents’ Strengths

The first relates to the chosen arena. Pirates are well known for their ability to obtain and copy content, but before the streaming boom, distribution was mostly the work of consumers, via P2P networks like BitTorrent. With content easier to obtain than ever before, more often than not pirates in the IPTV space today are distribution specialists, so any reliance on technical measures actually plays to their strengths.

Second, laws to deter piracy may have become more elaborate and increasingly tough with each passing decade, but piracy itself has become easier and more prolific. Getting caught can lead to more serious consequences for those involved, but if the law is any deterrent, the availability of content suggests that where it matters, the law makes almost no difference.

Obviously, laws to prevent or deter piracy are rarely static for long and exist to be tightened whenever the opportunity arises. Unfortunately, Italy’s blocking data suggests that the big stream suppliers are minimally affected by laws overseas and are extremely unlikely to face any type of punishment in Italy.

‘Piracy is an Internet Problem’

Every few years, frustration sets in and rightsholders’ attention refocuses more on internet infrastructure companies; typically Google, but also companies like Cloudflare, DNS providers, domain name companies, or anyone perceived to have a kill switch or magic filter. In Italy, where an ‘everything is possible’ mindset appears to have run head first into reality, attention is back on Cloudflare and Google.

Piracy Shield had been operational for just two weeks when Google found itself suddenly under pressure to fight piracy of its own volition. Yet the specific issue at hand – an alleged pirate app on Google Play – simply required a rightsholder to send a takedown notice, which apparently hadn’t been done. Instead, public comments implied that a lack of ethics and self-regulation were the problem.

Cloudflare Provides Infrastructure, Cloudflare Becomes a Target

On the back of a court battle that ultimately required Cloudflare to stop providing DNS services to music download platforms in Italy, Cloudflare is now facing a legal complaint filed by top-tier football league, Serie A.

This relates directly to IPTV providers using Cloudflare’s services in a way that means they can’t be blocked by Piracy Shield. Or, rather, they can’t be blocked without blocking innocent platforms too.

As a result, telecoms regulator AGCOM is taking a path already familiar to dozens of major rightsholders; find companies not engaged in piracy themselves but with plenty to lose, present piracy as their problem to solve, and then pile on the pressure and hope something gives.

Cloudflare and Google Summoned to Italy

A La Repubblica report published on Sunday (perhaps fittingly behind a hard paywall and not indexed by Google), AGCOM has summoned Cloudflare and Google to attend an official meeting in Italy during September.

According to the report, AGCOM chief Massimiliano Capitanio wants to hear directly from Google and Cloudflare about their strategies for defeating piracy in Italy, in particular those that target the sale and supply of pirate IPTV. Additional action to further limit the appearance of services in Google’s search results is apparently on the agenda, but even total elimination might not yield the desired results.

For comparison, search results in the UK no longer contain results for the major streaming sites; only imposters remain, but piracy levels aren’t reducing as a result. The fact that the major platforms are also blocked by all major ISPs, with more robust systems than those deployed under Piracy Shield (simply changing DNS is insufficient to unblock), suggests a complex landscape ahead. As for pirate IPTV devices and services discovered via search, anecdotal evidence indicates a shift towards offline or private sales, often facilitated via social media platforms, not search engines.

AGCOM Will Almost Certainly Aim High

In respect of Cloudflare, the company has made its legal position clear over the past several years. If rightsholders have a complaint, it will immediately forward that to the entity with the ability to remove the allegedly infringing content. The slides below show key company policy but AGCOM, which has made much of the ‘streams blocked in 30 mins’ standard for Piracy Shield, will want more and will demand much more.

Should AGCOM achieve any concessions or receive special treatment, two things are guaranteed; other rightsholders will demand the same or even more, then when that fails to achieve the desired result, all will keep returning for more.

How Cloudflare responds, if at all, could have implications for its global policy on copyright protection.

Meeting Under Dark Clouds

In line with its recent experiences of AGCOM, Google’s starting position seems more complex. In May, the Italian Council of State confirmed AGCOM sanctioning measures against Google Ireland, YouTube, and Twitter/X for violating the ban on advertising gambling with cash winnings.

The ruling that concerns Google Search found that the platform is an active hosting provider and therefore liable for infringement. The Court of Justice of the European Union previously determined that since the Google Ads service was automated and passive, Google incurred no liability.

Friction between AGCOM and Google on this and several other matters may prove insignificant in light of an announcement in mid-July by Italy’s antitrust agency, Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (Competition and Market Authority / AGCM).

AGCM said it had launched an investigation into Google and parent company Alphabet over alleged unfair practices involving users’ personal data. The agency said that consent notices Google sends to its users to connect to various services, such as Gmail and YouTube, “could constitute misleading and aggressive commercial practice.”

Google’s response was measured and non-aggressive, simply noting that it would cooperate with the authority on the matter.

Overall, Google does seem to present itself different, compared to several years ago. For example, it’s no longer completely opposed to many of the things it refused to do in the past, such as deranking pirate sites and completely deindexing others.

Deploying strong-arm tactics against Google on copyright matters, when things have been going generally in the right direction for some time, may not be the best approach. Cloudflare, on the other hand, is a relative newcomer to the piracy wars so is already on a different timeline and trajectory, offering products that in some areas may be considered even more of a threat.