Le strategie per combattere la pirateria e preservare la sicurezza digitale e i diritti d'autore. Intervista al Commissario Agcom Massimiliano Capitanio
(Adnkronos) - Massimiliano Capitanio, Commissario Agcom, descrive il nuovo approccio normativo e tecnologico contro la pirateria e i suoi effetti sull'economia e la sicurezza digitale, nel giorno della presentazione del calendario della Serie A TIM 2024/2025
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00:00Let's say that what should be framed as a premise is simply the fact that piracy is a phenomenon not from Robin Hood,
00:14but a business managed by organized crime that takes away about two billion euros from the country every year and causes tens of thousands of jobs to be lost.
00:26In that theft there are also data thefts that the bad guys use to cheat, to access bank accounts, to enter the home of the houses,
00:37as the police and the state police have officially said on several occasions.
00:44Agicom started to counteract piracy about 10 years ago and let's remember that for about 25 years Italy was in a sort of blacklist of countries that did not adopt suitable tools to counteract the phenomenon of piracy.
01:02So, between 2013 and 2014, the first regulation started, which allowed to disable in 10 years about 4,000 internet addresses and therefore sites, portals that transmitted piracy,
01:19with some modalities that were those allowed by the regulations of the time, i.e. precautionary procedures that could reach the order of disability around 3-5 days.
01:34The fundamental novelty of Piracy Shield is the platform, but the complexity, the combination between the law passed in Parliament in July 2023 and the regulation of Agicom,
01:50which had in the course of a few months that timing, which allows, with the so-called dynamic injunctions, which are the real normative novelty that has put Italy at the forefront in the world with this best practice,
02:05allowed to disable the portals within 30 minutes, but in these first months of experimentation of Piracy Shield, let's say that some orders went to sign within 5-10 minutes.
02:21This allowed, in the first 6 months of experimentation of the platform, to disable something like 23,000 addresses between IP and FQDN, 23,000 against about 4,000 that had been disabled in the previous 10 years.
02:40This is certainly the result of a success. This is the result of a great alliance that is not only industrial, regulatory, normative, but also a great ethical alliance against a phenomenon that really represents an underestimated plague of this country.
03:04On a technological level, this was possible because there is a great collaboration also with the many Internet Service Providers, with the large telephone companies that have worked and therefore also supported costs to connect to this digital platform, which is a tool that allows the holders of rights,
03:28at the moment we are mainly talking about sports rights, so sports events, football matches, Formula 1 Grand Prix, tennis matches, volleyball, basketball. With the implementation of the law, the tool will also be exposed to audiovisual, cinema and streaming events.
03:48The holder of the right reports to Agicom, with a well-formed and important agency, the event of the piracy act, therefore with a photograph of the match broadcast, the address on which the pirates rely, the photograph of the screenshot of the event of the piracy act.
04:17It is transmitted to Agicom, which in an automated way, however, performs a control and certification function of the procedure.
04:28Then, from the platform, this signal comes directly to the Internet Service Providers, who must by law disable the Internet site or the address, the FQDN or the specific IP within 30 minutes.
04:49The technology is in there and has had the certification of a technical board in which, together with many other partners, the most important in this action is also the defense of the personal data of citizens and the National Cyber Security Agency.
05:06It must be remembered that the protection of copyright is a milestone in the defense of our cultural identity and the first laws date back to the 1940s.
05:19Today the law stipulates that the disability of sites, the law 93 of 2023, applies within 30 minutes, not only for sporting events, but also for live events, the first cinemas.
05:39To be up to date, it is enough to say that one of the most up-to-date films of these days, which is Inside Out 2, on pirate platforms, therefore with a damage to the cinemas, to the workers of the cinemas, to the distributor system, to copyright,
06:02was usable on pirate platforms, among other things, also removing the beauty of the cinematographic experience that was available on mobile phones, tablets and PCs even the day before the release of the film.
06:17Let's say that the law 93 of 2023 specifies what is the role of Agicom in the disability of these live events, streaming events, and therefore not only from next fall, from next winter,
06:39Agicom, through Piracy Shield, will disable access to pirate websites that broadcast sporting events, but it will also be interested in first cinemas, but also TV series that are pirated.
06:54Let's remember that many times, when dealing with this debate, it is argued that the problem, which is real and must be discussed, is the costs, but let's remember that today there are applications that are used in a pirate way, also to watch live events,
07:13I think of the Coppa Italia games that were clearly distributed by Mediaset, but that were still pirated, because the pirates use those games to absorb advertising charges, or even films that are normally found on free distribution platforms, such as RaiPlay, and are made available to the pirates.
07:40So, let's say that, at the regulatory level, it will certainly be integrated in this way.
07:46Then, a problem that has arisen in recent months, are the tools that the pirates have used to defend themselves from the effects of the law, thus certifying that the law and the tools are working.
08:02So, in order to avoid the law, systems such as cloud services, OpenDNS, VPN have been used, and therefore the debate today is whether to further extend the regulation in order to curb these scapegoats.
08:24There is basically a cultural digital divide in Italy, so we all consider ourselves digital natives, because we leave the cell phone in hand, when in reality we do not know, unfortunately, neither the positive potential nor the many risks.
08:47Let's think that in 2023 there was an increase in online scams, which then belong to the same cultural matrix that then feeds piracy. Online scams have increased by 6% and have fallen victim to an online scam.
09:04So, let's say that there is a lack of awareness of the fact that behind that screen, behind that cell phone, unfortunately, there are also organizations that are not aware of the fact that there is an online scam.
09:31Unfortunately, there are also criminal organizations that manage business like piracy, but at the same time they also organize scams, data thefts, identity thefts, threats, extortion. So, unfortunately, there is a lack of solid digital education.
09:50In this, AGICOM obviously wants to play a part. Law 92 of 2019 reintroduced in Italy compulsory civic education from elementary schools to high schools. Article 5 of that law provides for digital education.
10:07Just a few weeks ago, AGICOM gave to the regional curriculum, which are our territorial emanations, guidelines for the so-called digital patent to bring to schools civic digital education actions, which mainly concern media education,
10:28to defend against fake news, to interpret the content, the many contents that we find on the internet, but on the other hand also an introduction to legality, therefore the prevention of the many crimes that are committed and also tools for which to defend oneself.
10:47Yes, this is a very important point and it is linked to the lack of awareness of before. In the sense that the path of contrast to piracy is a gradual path that must not be punitive, but educational.
11:02This is the reason why, of course, the main action of the police, but also of the authorities, has been aimed at disabling the criminal system.
11:14But it is also true that the user who connects to a pirated application, a pirated internet site, aware of the fact that he is, in quotation marks, stealing a content, is not aware of the gravity of the situation because at the moment it has been decided, as a country system, to mainly affect organizations.
11:34Sanctions have also arrived a few times. The law 93 of 2023, however, to give a clear signal, has heavily exonerated these sanctions, for which those who watch a movie or a football game or a tennis game through an application on a pirated site today risk a fine ranging from 150 euros to 5,000 euros.
11:57Banally, those who use the so-called Pezotto are liable to a fine of 5,000 euros because, having signed an obviously illegal subscription, they are fully aware of a phenomenon of illegality and, among other things, they repeat it day after day. In that case, the maximum fine would be applied, which is 5,000 euros.
12:21Then, of course, the organizations of these criminal businesses are mainly affected. In this case, the sanctions reach up to 15,000 euros, which, in my opinion, are still, from a personal point of view, obviously negligible in the face of the two billion euros that are stolen from the country system every year.
12:40On the other hand, those who manage these organizations, these servers, this distribution of the cloned signal of the rights holders, risk up to six months to three years in prison. So there is a normative, solid and absolutely updated system.
13:01It is obvious that the integration with Piracy Shield, the collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, the Postal Police, the Prosecutor's Office, will or can make available to the police the data of the people who circulated on those pirated systems.
13:22Once the IP address is associated, rather than the phone number, the cell phone number, with the vision of that content, those who have a duty will proceed with the sanctions.
13:35This is another fundamental element, in the sense that sports rights are still a very important part of the economic recovery with which football teams then feed the youth sectors, the first teams can cultivate talents.
13:58After the dramatic experience of this last European Championship, it is clear that there is a need for teams that can invest resources. Obviously, the numbers are not comparable to those of the Premier League, because Italy, the Serie A league, has achieved revenues of about 2.9 billion in the last auction of rights, which are less than half of the 6 billion registered by the Premier League.
14:25However, it is clear that piracy subtracts economic resources from the world of football.
14:37It is a problem that is not only Italian, because even in France there has been a strong difficulty in auctioning or selling television rights, while on the other hand there is the challenge of legal instruments that are absolutely available and on which a strong ethical collaboration is increasingly necessary,
15:01also with the big platforms that, for example, can act as is already foreseen by the law, with the so-called delisting actions, because if I go on the main global search engines and type in pirate football or see the free game instead of payment, it is obvious that the search engine should not facilitate me in this research.
15:28The search engines also manage DNS systems that should not allow pirates to easily access these platforms, because here we have an ethical problem, a security problem of users' data and then there is the very important problem, which is the economic one.
15:51By the way, there is a beautiful campaign carried out by FAPAV, which is the anti-piracy federation, it is called We Are Stories and it tells the story of the many young people who are behind this world of cinematography, sports rights, telechronists, directors, dubbers, translators in sign language,
16:14who, obviously, accusing these serious economic losses in the general system, obviously deprive themselves of important job opportunities, which are signals that we must never overlook.
16:27The main mission of Agicom is not, of course, to sanction people, companies, telecommunications companies, but it is precisely the guarantee authority for communications that is born as a great tutor, a great protector of users under many profiles.
16:45I come to the question, but I remember, for example, that people with disabilities can have access to telephony with tariffs and discounts up to 50% thanks to some actions implemented by Agicom.
17:00There are daily tools to protect minors and people with disabilities. I think, for example, of the Parental Control, which can be activated for free on all SIMs tested or managed by minors.
17:14Since last November, this has also been a great economic effort by telephone operators, but it is a fundamental service, and I take the opportunity of this interview to invite parents to activate it for free, because it is a shield against pornography, drug sales, weapons, satanic sets, ludopathy and many other contents that are dangerous for minors.
17:38Then there are services that work, that are widely used, but perhaps do not belong to popular culture, such as the web council, which is the platform that allows users for years to assert their rights when there are controversies with telephone companies,
17:57such as the loss of numbers, the lack of activation of subscriptions, tickets that are duplicated. And since last year, through this platform, accessible by internet at www.conciliaweb.it, since last year it is possible to assert one's rights, even in the case of disabilities, with subscriptions to pay TV.
18:21The striking case of the last few years was that of Dasora, which made it available directly to users, also following the action of the authority, which, among other things, imposed, for the first time in Europe, also improvements in the CDN at the management and distribution level of the signals.
18:48But Agicom allows, through this platform, to be able to report and obtain possible refunds in the event of a disservice, but a much more popular theme, for example, Agicom is the same authority that, during the Champions Cup semifinal, for example, between Inter and Milan,
19:07in any case, based on the law and the list provided by the MIMIT, the transmission of certain events, therefore the access to the most popular content, the Sanremo festival, the matches of the national football team, some finals of other sporting events, the first of the scale, the concert at the Fenice.
19:35Agicom also has this role of guaranteeing free access to many sporting, cultural and musical events in the country.