Piracy Shield 2.0 in Doubt For 2024 , TV Manufacturers Urged to Ban VPN

Claims that Italy will launch Piracy Shield 2.0 at the end of the year appear to be overly optimistic. With just four months left of 2024, a software supplier hasn't even been chosen yet. With the current system falling over, previously blocked domains and IP addresses are being unblocked to make room for new ones, something that the law has no provision for. Meanwhile, smart TV manufacturers will soon be asked to ban a VPN app from their sets.
Early June 2024, Italian media reported on comments made by the head of telecoms regulator AGCOM at the Serie A Festival a few days earlier.

During the panel “The metaverse of piracy” Massimiliano Capitanio reportedly brought those in attendance up to date on Piracy Shield, Italy’s controversial and by then already failing anti-piracy blocking system.

Piracy Shield has had its fair share of problems but on a fundamental level, it appears to have been designed for a much smaller job. The volume of blocking wasn’t anticipated, which is an altogether more valid reason than catering for just 60 to 70 ISPs when the country has 300+.

The reason for not meeting obvious demand isn’t clear; plans for AC Milan’s new stadium indicate a spectator capacity of 70,000, not an initial ~15,000 followed by a rebuild when fans immediately run short of elbow room.

All New Piracy Shield 2.0

Faced with a relentless flood of domain names and IP addresses reported for blocking (Feb to July, pdf), Capitanio said that the system had begun to timeout.

“There are two upgrades to be made. An infrastructural one; this platform which has done its job very well until today suffers the weight of this mass of data,” the AGCOM chief said.

“Phase 2 will be implemented with a new platform by the end of the year, the current one will be expanded.”

With a new platform supposedly just a few months away, other details began to emerge. They included an estimated two million euros per year in running costs set to be financed from the public purse.

New Season: Unblocking to Keep On Blocking

The legislation that supports Piracy Shield presents puzzles of its own. Placing an IP address or domain on the blocklist is relatively easy, yet there’s no provision to revoke blocks. Not only is that problematic when IP addresses are blocked in error, the perpetual blocking of finite IPv4 addresses amounts to a potential time-bomb waiting for the worst possible moment to go off.

That the Piracy Shield system itself would run into problems first, only adds to the list of problems that could’ve been avoided. A pre-established limit of 18,000 blocking records was reached more quickly than anticipated, meaning that when the new season launched this month, blocking should’ve ground to halt, at least in theory.

In reality, an unspecified number of old blocks were revoked to make way for fresh blocking, regardless of the regulations.

According to La Repubblica, the rules will be updated at a later stage, but the report contains other surprises too.

Piracy Shield 2.0 May Not Even Exist Yet
Consip is an Italian state-owned company responsible for procurement of public goods and services. If the state needs something significant, Consip typically reports the details on its website so that interested companies can bid for the work. So, to a background of Piracy Shield 2.0 will arrive later this year, this is how La Repubblica described the state of play late last week.

“On behalf of [telecoms regulator] AGCOM, Consip will call for a tender for a private supplier to create ‘Shield 2’,” the publication reported.

Use of the future tense strongly suggests that rather than being on schedule as previously claimed, it’s possible that a schedule doesn’t even exist, at least one with terms that have been agreed with a supplier.

In comments reported Wednesday last week, Serie A CEO Luigi De Siervo noted that AGCOM “…is now about to make further improvements and technical updates to [Piracy Shield] and we trust that these implementations will allow us to obtain even more important results, as it will increase the number of blocks of pirate signals that can be achieved.”

So, with no indication that a contract has been awarded, much less a supplier having committed to delivering everything in four months, Piracy Shield 2.0 may not even exist. Stranger things have happened but attempting to build Rome in a day rarely ends well.

AGCOM Prepares to Target a VPN

It’s no secret that ISP blocking can be instantly defeated using a VPN, but it’s worth keeping in mind that the first VPN protocol (PPTP in 1996) predates pirate site blocking in Europe by a decade (AllofMP3, 2006). Relakks, one of the earliest commercial VPN services as they’re understood today, predates site-blocking in Europe by a few months. It was promoted for anonymity, no sites needed to be unblocked back then.

Showing that AGCOM’s public attitude to VPNs has changed in recent months begins in October 2023. In response to some IPTV providers making VPN use mandatory, AGCOM chief Capitanio welcomed the news.

“The fact that criminal organizations, which run the piracy business, are inviting their ‘customers’ to hide behind #vpn systems is positive news,” he said, adding that in his opinion, the use of a VPN makes it easier to prove intent.

Later that month, an AGCOM document stated that “[A]ll parties in any capacity involved in the accessibility of illegally disseminated content – and therefore also, by way of example and not limitation – VPN and open DNS service providers, will have to execute the blocks requested by the Authority [AGCOM]…”

AGCOM Wants Smart TV Manufacturers to Ban VPN App

An Italian court recently confirmed that AGCOM’s blocking powers aren’t as broad as those envisioned above, and that “in any capacity” is certainly a step too far. AGCOM, meanwhile, seems undeterred, as La Repubblica reports.

“In these hours AGCOM is studying apps that are legitimate in themselves, but that also end up in the wrong hands. These commonly used apps protect our browsing on the Net from the prying eyes – for example – of search engines, hunters of personal data,” the report reads.

“The same apps, however, allow subscribers to the pezzotto [piracy devices] to watch pirate channels anonymously, without leaving traces of their paths on the web.”

The report suggests that AGCOM is currently interested in a specific VPN app available on smart TV app stores. The app isn’t named but AGCOM says the company behind it has an office in the European Union.

Copyright Law or Something Else?

Whether AGCOM views specific EU legislation or regulations as a point of leverage is currently unknown. During September, however, two smart TV manufacturers will be asked to prevent their customers from installing the VPN app on their respective TV sets.

While the devil can often be found lurking in the detail, in broad terms targeting a piracy-promoting VPN provider is vastly different from targeting a legitimate VPN service that a) has never been sold for infringing purposes and b) meets its general legal obligations.

If we assume that no rightsholder intends to sue the VPN provider in question, one has to wonder why AGCOM is getting involved and what it hopes to achieve.

AGCOM has no standing on copyright grounds, but the Digital Services Act may yet conjure up a surprise or two.