Over seven hundred websites and 300 pirate IPTV platforms have been blocked by Italy’s Guardia di Finanza with a sign that appeared on users’ screens during the Cagliari-Sampdoria match broadcast by Sky
Surprised “pirate” viewers intent on watching the Cagliari vs Sampdoria clash on their Smart TV, PC, tablet, or smartphone, were welcomed with a blacked-out screen.
“This illegal streaming service has been seized” said the message. The conclusion was definitive – “Accessing such data constitutes evidence which will be made available to the judicial authority”.
The Cagliari vs Sampdoria match of the seventh day of the Serie A football championship, will certainly be remembered as another important turning point in the fight against content piracy, in this case audio visual.
The final message “Accessing such data constitutes evidence which will be made available to the judicial authority” is the thing that will now mostly worry all users of the over 700 websites and 300 pirated IPTV platforms obscured by the Guardia di Finanza.
All this must be considered in the context of a maxi investigation by the special privacy protection and technological fraud unit of the Fiamme Gialle coordinated by the Naples prosecutor.
The investigation is still underway, but rumours have been confirmed and the prosecutor should be giving more details over the coming days.
In what is being considered as the largest operation ever on this issue, subscription or use of illegal streaming services implies a penalty ranging from six months to three years imprisonment and fines that could range from €2,582 to €25,822.
A crucial issue is pirate content transmitted through digital channels where digital technology multiplies opportunities for content thieves. An analysis prepared by Ipsos on behalf of the Federation for the Protection of Audio-visual and Multimedia Contents quantified the damage to over 1.1 billion from acts of piracy, in general, with a negative impact in terms of GDP of almost 500 million and lost revenues for the state of nearly 200 million. For the audio-visual industry alone, the damage can be estimated at 591 million and almost 6 thousand jobs gone up in smoke.
A spokesperson for the federation described this as “a very important operation that demonstrates how our country is extremely decisive and at the forefront in the fight against cybercrime.”
Luigi De Siervo, CEO of Lega Serie A thanked the Italian Guardia di Finanza for its action.
“The transmission and viewing of our games, through illegal streaming services constitutes a real criminal act that entails serious consequences both for the criminal organizations that manage them and for the users who use them illegally,” he said.
