Italy requires that VPN and DNS suppliers block access to the pirated content in 30 minutes, whether a football game or any other live event, films on request and television series included.
The country’s communication regulator, AGCom, approved the new antipirable measures on Tuesday, February 18, 2025, in a great impulse to the existing antipyretary system. Italy enforced the so -called piracy shield at the beginning of last year specifically to fight live sports piracy mainly through IP block.
The news occurs when the giant channel of the French transmission+ is considering blocking the use of VPN to prevent citizens from avoiding the country’s antipirable tactics. However, some of the best VPN suppliers in the market argue that aiming at their services runs the risk of undermining people’s internet freedom instead of resolving online piracy.
What is the piracy shield of Italy?
Italy enforced its piracy shield system in February 2024 to prevent citizens from accessing live sporting events through pirate sites, especially football matches. To do so, right -wing sholders may demand domain names related to piracy and IP directions suspected copyright infringement are blocked in 30 minutes.
While the Italian antipyretary system has proven effective so far, technology companies have been raising concerns with the EU authorities about multiple incidents of excess blocking.
However, industry criticisms were not enough to stop the AGCOM mission. The country’s communication regulator now wants to expand the scope of its piracy shield even more to face the pest of piracy that affects the film and audiovisual industries.
As the AGCom commissioner, Massimiliano Capitanio wrote in a LinkedIn post on Tuesday: “With the resolution voted today, the fight against piracy takes another step forward.”
Online piracy and VPNS
Among the new AGCcom measures, “extending the locking order to VPN” is surely the set to create the greatest amount of discussions.
A virtual private network (VPN) is the security software that figure all Internet connections and falsifies the real IP address of users. While most people use VPN in Italy and beyond to increase their online privacy, their IP dispossession skills also allow users to avoid piracy restrictions.
This is exactly the reason why the French rightists have presented to the tastes of Protonvpn, Nordvpn, Expressvpn, Surfhsark and Cyberghost with legal actions, seeking to block VPN’s access to people who seek to violate the copyright laws of the country.
Specific VPN companies plan to fight against the giant of the transmission of France, considering the “illogical” demand and warning that this would have “radical consequences” for the internet security and the privacy of people in France.
For its part, Italy has not shared how VPN suppliers are expected to meet the new requirements. Nor is it clear if this would be technically feasible for companies that operate VPN without registration, which supposedly cannot see what users are doing when they connect to their service.
We have contacted some of the most popular VPN suppliers who request comments and update the page accordingly.
