Gianpaolo Todisco
In February 2024, Italy introduced a system to combat digital piracy that was unprecedented in Europe: Piracy Shield. Designed to block the illegal distribution of sporting events and copyright-protected content, the system is managed by AGCOM and is based on a mechanism that promptly blocks access to suspicious content, with a response time of less than 30 minutes.
However, just over a year after its entry into force, the European Commission raised formal concerns about the Italian system's compliance with the Digital Services Act (DSA), with particular reference to the protection of fundamental rights, including freedom of expression, transparency, and data protection.
What does Piracy Shield provide for?
The system allows rights holders (e.g., television broadcasters) to report infringements in real time, obtaining a blocking order from AGCOM for ISPs, DNS resolvers, CDNs, and VPN providers. All this without prior judicial validation. The mechanism also applies to dynamic IPs and foreign DNS, so as to render the migration of content to new domains ineffective.
The objective is clear: to prevent the illegal transmission of live events (especially sports), where the effectiveness of protection is measured in hours, not years.
The European Union's call
On June 13, 2025, the European Commission notified the Italian government of a request for formal clarification, highlighting potential issues of compatibility with the DSA, which came into full effect in February 2024.
The main concerns:
Lack of transparency: there is no adequate right to be heard or public justification for blocking decisions.
Overblocking: numerous cases of legitimate sites being wrongly blocked have been reported, including even Google services.
Absence of prior judicial review, contrary to Article 8 of the DSA, which requires procedural safeguards when legal content is restricted.
Furthermore, the obligation imposed on providers to carry out blocks without independent oversight could violate the principle of technological neutrality and raise sensitive issues regarding the liability of intermediaries.
The practical consequences: inconvenience and protests
In addition to regulatory concerns, the system has already had concrete repercussions:
The VPN provider AirVPN has stopped providing services to Italian citizens, considering it impossible to operate in accordance with its standards of transparency and data protection.
Some public DNS resolvers (Cloudflare, OpenDNS) have had to change their policies to avoid indirect liability.
Ordinary users have complained that they are unable to access entirely lawful content, reporting a paralysing effect on the digital ecosystem.
The balance between copyright protection and digital rights
The heart of the debate is legal and constitutional: how far can copyright protection go without compromising fundamental freedoms such as access to information, freedom of enterprise and privacy protection?
The Digital Services Act imposes a model of transparent and proportionate moderation, which requires:
human assessment and justification of decisions,
the possibility of appeal by users,
the publication of transparency reports by the authorities.
The Piracy Shield, in its current form, seems to sacrifice these guarantees in favor of efficient but summary copyright protection.
The debate between Italy and the EU Commission is only just beginning. If the Italian government fails to provide satisfactory answers, formal infringement proceedings will be launched, with possible regulatory changes or sanctions.
In the meantime, the debate also involves the national courts, where appeals have already been filed against AGCOM for violation of constitutional rights, and Parliament, which may have to review the basic legislation in light of the European observations.