In the fight against illegal IPTV, Italy has put the big guns on the table. The country has implemented the "Piracy Shield" a very restrictive anti-piracy system, which requires internet operators to block access to pirated content within 30 minutes of being reported by rights holders. And we're not just talking about access providers: DNS resolvers are also in the trap.
Google trapped by the "Anti-Piracy Shield" Italian
A DNS operator is a service responsible for translating domain names (such as "google.com") into computer-readable IP addresses, thus allowing access to websites. Google is one of them with its public DNS service, which allows domain names to be resolved quickly (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4). These servers are very popular because they generally offer high performance, good stability, and protection against certain computer attacks.
Since Google is a DNS operator, it must comply with the Italian Piracy Shield. This is the conclusion of the Milan court, which, following a complaint from Serie A (the Italian equivalent of Ligue 1), demanded that the web giant "poison" its public DNS to block access to sites offering illegal content and pirated sports broadcasts.
The decision was taken unilaterally, without prior hearing from Google! This approach, dubbed "inaudita altera parte" in Latin, which literally means "without hearing the other party," is exceptional. The court made the ruling due to the supposedly urgent and obvious nature of the alleged offenses.
The Italian justice system considered that the evidence provided by the plaintiffs was sufficiently solid and that the consequences of the hacking required a rapid response, thus justifying temporarily waiving Google's defense. The plaintiffs were Serie A and AGCOM, the communications regulator.
Google will, however, have the opportunity to defend its position at an upcoming hearing. This will certainly be an opportunity to recall the draconian nature of the "shield against piracy" Last year, Italian internet service providers briefly blocked the entire Google Drive domain because someone had shared protected content there. Millions of legitimate users of the service were deprived of access for several hours.
Last December, the same court ordered Cloudflare to block access to sites illegally broadcasting football matches. In France, too, rights holders are attacking DNS. Canal+ in particular is very vocal on this issue and has obtained a court order to block DNS to streaming sites.
Source: TorrentFreak
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