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New Pirate IPTV Bill Moved to Senate as Italy Takes on 'Digital Mafias'Andy Maxwell, 24 Mar 10:34 AM Italian consumers' love for pirate IPTV service

New Pirate IPTV Bill Moved to Senate as Italy Takes on 'Digital Mafias' Andy Maxwell, 24 Mar 10:34 AM Italian consumers' love for pirate IPTV services and the alleged damage suffered by broadcasters and the country's world-famous clubs at the hands of those services, have been on a collision course for some time. Italy has operated an administrative pirate site-blocking program for years. It currently blocks around 3,200+ pirate domains, with telecoms regulator AGCOM sometimes issuing blocking instructions to ISPs within days of a rightsholder complaint. Defending live sporting events from ubiquitous pirate IPTV streams demands a whole lot more, though. After gaining and maintaining momentum, alongside increasing political pressure, it seems likely that football clubs and broadcasters are about to collect. Push For The Big Anti-Piracy Bill By the middle of 2022, support for radical action to shut down the flow of pirate streams was building in Italy. Unprecedented blocking measures, new powers for telecoms regulator AGCOM, punishments for stream suppliers, even punishments for those in the telecoms sector who fail to block them, sat firmly on the table. Working against the clock in December 2022, the new standards were laid out, one in particular. ISPs would be required to block pirate IPTV streams "without delay and in real time" most likely having been informed well in advance of what to shut down. Anti-Piracy Bill Unanimously Approved This week in the Chamber of Deputies, Italy's lower house of parliament, the football and broadcasting industry-developed anti-piracy bill was unanimously waved through to the final. If the bill meets with the approval of the Senate, as it almost certainly will, the new law will attempt to strangle the availability of pirate streams and punish suppliers and consumers of those that get through. Contrari: Zero New powers bestowed upon AGCOM will see it rapidly respond to rightsholders' complaints against all types of content, not just illegally streamed football matches. AGCOM will be able to order the immediate shutdown of pirate IPTV streams and any associated platforms, and have internet service providers respond to those orders within 30 minutes. Search engines will be required to remove pirate platforms from their results. That may be just the beginning for the telecoms regulator. Once the law is approved, an automated blocking system could be in place in just a few months, with the aim of blocking pirate IPTV streams almost instantaneously. That type of system obviously can't be built in just a few months, at least not from a standing start. Live IPTV blocking systems have been operating for several years, especially in the UK. Work in Italy is already underway. Whether the positions are directly linked to developments in Italy is unclear, but the live IPTV blocking experts at anti-piracy company Friend MTS have been on quite the recruitment drive lately. From senior software engineers to automation, DevOps, and algorithm engineers, offers to swell the ranks have been numerous over recent weeks. Italy Intends to Go Hard According to official documentation (pdf), the bill seeks to punish anyone making illegal copies of any cinema, audiovisual, or publishing content (in whole or in part) with up to three years in prison and a fine of up to 15.5k euros. If somehow the blocking mechanisms fail to do their job and pirate IPTV services aren't driven out of business, people who subscribe to pirate TV packages will also face sanctions including fines of up to 5,000 euros. AGCOM chief Massimiliano Capitanio seems pleased with progress thus far. "Italy is the first country in Europe to challenge the digital mafia in this way," he said, adding that Sky and Dazn will help fund additional staff at AGCOM. From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. Cloudstream Takes Site and Code Offline in Response to Hollywood Complaint Ernesto Van der Sar, 23 Mar 10:22 PM Legal video streaming services such as Amazon, Disney, and Netflix are booming. At the same time, there's a flourishing dark market of pirate streaming tools. These unauthorized alternatives increasingly use slick designs and easy-to-use apps to appeal to a broad audience. And unlike the legal options, they offer all popular titles under the same roof, without charging a penny. Cloudstream is one of the apps that made its mark in recent years. The Android-based software can aggregate pirated content from several third-party sources and is fully customizable through open-source extensions. This hasn't gone unnoticed by rightsholders. Sky UK targeted the software last year and across the pond, Cloudstream also appeared on the radar of the MPA, Hollywood's anti-piracy group. MPA Targets Cloudstream This week, the MPA decided to take action. The organization, which represents the major Hollywood studios and Netflix, sent a DMCA notice to GitHub, asking the developer platform to remove several Cloustream-related files. "We […] request your assistance in addressing, the extensive copyright infringement of motion pictures and television shows that is occurring by virtue of the operation of the domain cloudstream.cf, which is hosted on and available for download from your repository GitHub Inc. "Specifically, at the URL, the Repository hosts and offers for download the APK CloudStream, which in turn is used to engage in massive infringement of copyrighted motion pictures and television shows," the notice adds. When GitHub receives DMCA notices it typically informs developers of the targeted content, allowing them to address the problem on their own. That also happened in this instance and led to a drastic decision. Cloudstream Takes Voluntary Action Yesterday, Cloudstream developer "Lag" informed the app's Discord followers that they had received a "very serious DMCA notice" that simply can't be ignored. For that reason, the team will voluntarily remove the contested files from GitHub. According to "Lag", complying with the takedown request was the only viable option. The developer didn't wait for GitHub to respond and decided to pull the plug, hoping to avoid legal repercussions. "Having the absolute worst anti-piracy coalition on our asses is not preferable. They will undoubtedly fuck us legally if they have to. Think what you want but I do not want all of Hollywood after me because of some hobby project," Lag wrote. "At least they will never be able to shut down torrents :)" The MPA's DMCA notice also mentioned the Cloudstream.cf domain, which has gone offline too, and remains unreachable for the foreseeable future. Speaking with TorrentFreak, "Lag" explains that the site linked to the reported repositories and was taken down for that reason. The developer is still waiting to hear from GitHub to see if his removal actions are sufficient, before making choosing how to go forward. However, challenging the MPA isn't on the table. A Prime Enforcement Target The MPA's head of Global Content Protection and Enforcement Operations, Jan van Voorn, confirmed the legitimacy of the takedown request, adding that it hasn't contacted the developer directly, yet. "The popularity of Cloudstream's website, which received millions of visits in the last few months alone, and its Discord channel, with over 46,000 members, naturally made it appear on our radar as a prime target for enforcement," Van Voorn says. As we publish this article, all of the reported GitHub URLs are unreachable. Most return a 404 error, indicating that the developer removed the content voluntarily. In addition, a repo from 'third-party' developer "Eddy976" displays a DMCA removal notice, so GitHub likely intervened there. Given the immediate response of developer "Lag", it seems unlikely that they will stage a comeback under the same team. However, the door remains open for an external restart, according to the Discord message. "The project may be handed off to another development team within a couple of days so I would refrain from calling it over yet," Lag wrote. That will likely ensure the MPA's continued interest. — A copy of the MPA's DMCA notice to GitHub is available here. Below is a list of all the targeted URLs. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/recloudstream/cloudstream-extensions/builds/repo.json https://raw.githubusercontent.com/recloudstream/cloudstream-extensionsmultilingual/builds/repo.json https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hexated/cloudstream-extensions-hexated/builds/repo.json https://raw.githubusercontent.com/yoyzo/arab/builds/repo.json https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Jacekun/cs3xxx-repo/main/repo.json https://raw.githubusercontent.com/daarkdemon/cs-darkdemon-extensions/builds/repo.json https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LikDev-256/likdev256-tamil-providers/builds/repo.json https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Stormunblessed/kamy-cs3/master/repo.json https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Eddy976/cloudstream-extensions-eddy/builds/repo.json https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Stormunblessed/stormunblessed-cs3/master/repo.json https://raw.githubusercontent.com/821938089/cloudstream-extensions/master/repo.json https://github.com/recloudstream/cloudstream-extensions https://github.com/recloudstream/plugin-template https://github.com/yoyzo/arab https://github.com/Eddy976/cloudstream-extensions-eddy From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. ©2023 TorrentFreak | Office 21338 PO Box 4336 Manchester, North West M61 0BW United Kingdom Web Version   Preferences   Forward   Unsubscribe     Powered by Mad Mimi®A GoDaddy® company