Illegal pay-TV, Lega Serie A takes the American giant CloudFlare to court: “Pirated services”
The battle against piracy is directing its attention towards the United States. Until now, the Football Leaguethe organizer of the A leaguehas concentrated its efforts in the fight against the so-called “pezzotto” (the jargon name for this illicit streaming practice) on individuals who illegally broadcast pay-TV broadcasts in the cellars of various areas of Italy, as well as on criminals who manage this lucrative business even in Eastern Europe.
However, with an appeal presented to the Court of Milan on 3 April, the Lega Calcio has targeted a US IT company which, according to what was stated in the appeal, would have provided “services to pirates” (i.e. to fraudulent broadcasters) and even ” to their customers” (the so-called fans).
“Paying an illegal season ticket helps the mafias. It takes away 1.7 billion of GDP a year and 10 thousand jobs. Finally, it damages the club you support: it loses money, is less strong in the Cups, cannot buy champions or invest in young people”, he declared last year Massimiliano Capitanio, commissioner of the Authority, in an interview with Repubblica. “You commit a crime, it’s like stealing from a supermarket.”
As reported Republic, the company in question is Cloudflare, which would be responsible for allowing the circumvention of the anti-piracy shield that the Communications Regulatory Authority (AgCom) has established since February 2nd. This shield is designed to block illegal sites within 30 minutes of starting broadcasts.
In an already intricate context, the complexity of the sites in order that the shield would have obscured is added. It is important to point out that the accusations made by Football League are disputed. The decision on a possible investigation lies with the Court of Milan, prompted by possible new complaints.
According to League Soccer, the pirates are adopting a well-defined strategy. They try to bypass the security system of Italian guarantor, while they disseminate instructions online that allow “fans” to watch matches anonymously and without risk. The lawyers of the Football League, with caution, mention that Cloudflare provides pirates with “refuge and escape routes”, facilitating their impunity.
The League, in particular, cited a specific service of the company, namely the Free VPN. It is emphasized that the use of this VPN it can hide pirate activity from the eyes of the authorities. However, the company could identify illegal pay-TV subscribers if it shared connection logs with law enforcement, but it has refused to do so. Cloudflarethe company in question, has officially stated that it does not cooperate with law enforcement agencies, nor does it provide them access to customer data.
But that is not all. The anti-pirate shield of the Italian Guarantor blocks access to illegal sites via IP And FQDN. There Football League he also accuses Cloudflare to offer tools to bypass these blocks. Most notably, the company allows users to self-manage DNS, an anti-lock feature of their Internet subscription. Furthermore, the appeal of League mentions the use of CDNa technology that improves streaming quality by sending content to the servers closest to the user.
There Football League claims that Cloudflare it could easily deny service to illegal pay-TVs, but it doesn’t. In the end, Cloudflare it would provide pirate pay-TVs with authoritative DNS.
When the Italian guarantor blocks an access and viewing door fraudulent pay-TV (again the FQDN), this parachute immediately opens reserve doors. Thousands, even millions.
Cloudflare, based in San Francisco, has always rejected all accusations and especially the requests of the Italian authorities, defining them as “illicit or unconstitutional”. Furthermore, he complains that perfectly legal sites are being blacked out at the hands of the Italian anti-pezzotto shield.
In the appeal of Football League we read that on 24 February 2024, two addresses of the Guarantor were reached by approximately 1200 protest emails. Sources AgCom they report that there were as many as 2000 emails, some coming from ordinary senders and others from senders with legally valid certified email.
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