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Title: Massive Expansion of Italy's Piracy Shield Underway

Link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/04/03/22572...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Techdirt: Walled Culture has been
following closely Italy's poorly designed Piracy Shield system. Back in
December we reported how copyright companies used their access to the Piracy
Shield system to order Italian Internet service providers (ISPs) to block
access to all of Google Drive for the entire country, and how malicious
actors could similarly use that unchecked power to shut down critical
national infrastructure. Since then, the Computer & Communications
Industry Association (CCIA), an international, not-for-profit association
representing computer, communications, and Internet industry firms, has added
its voice to the chorus of disapproval. In a letter (PDF) to the European
Commission, it warned about the dangers of the Piracy Shield system to the EU
economy [...]. It also raised an important new issue: the fact that Italy
brought in this extreme legislation without notifying the European Commission
under the so-called "TRIS" procedure, which allows others to comment on
possible problems [...]. As well as Italy's failure to notify the Commission
about its new legislation in advance, the CCIA believes that: this anti-
piracy mechanism is in breach of several other EU laws. That includes the
Open Internet Regulation which prohibits ISPs to block or slow internet
traffic unless required by a legal order. The block subsequent to the Piracy
Shield also contradicts the Digital Services Act (DSA) in several aspects,
notably Article 9 requiring certain elements to be included in the orders to
act against illegal content. More broadly, the Piracy Shield is not aligned
with the Charter of Fundamental Rights nor the Treaty on the Functioning of
the EU -- as it hinders freedom of expression, freedom to provide internet
services, the principle of proportionality, and the right to an effective
remedy and a fair trial. Far from taking these criticisms to heart, or
acknowledging that Piracy Shield has failed to convert people to paying
subscribers, the Italian government has decided to double down, and to make
Piracy Shield even worse. Massimiliano Capitanio, Commissioner at AGCOM, the
Italian Authority for Communications Guarantees, explained on LinkedIn how
Piracy Shield was being extended in far-reaching ways (translation by Google
Translate, original in Italian). [...] That is, Piracy Shield will apply to
live content far beyond sports events, its original justification, and to
streaming services. Even DNS and VPN providers will be required to block
sites, a serious technical interference in the way the Internet operates, and
a threat to people's privacy. Search engines, too, will be forced to de-index
material. The only minor concession to ISPs is to unblock domain names and IP
addresses that are no longer allegedly being used to disseminate unauthorized
material. There are, of course, no concessions to ordinary Internet users
affected by Piracy Shield blunders. In the future, Italy's Piracy Shield will
add: - 30-minute blackout orders not only for pirate sports events, but also
for other live content; - the extension of blackout orders to VPNs and public
DNS providers; - the obligation for search engines to de-index pirate sites; -
 the procedures for unblocking domain names and IP addresses obscured by
Piracy Shield that are no longer used to spread pirate content; - the new
procedure to combat piracy on the #linear and "on demand" television, for
example to protect the #film and #serietv.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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