IPTV: Why Stopping Piracy Is Almost Impossible ?

© Sergey Zolkin

What to do to counter the rise of illegal IPTV ? This is the question that broadcasters and streaming platforms have been asking themselves for several years now. In this regard, Italy has decided to strike hard by launching a new tool that should put an end to piracy. A university study has attempted to evaluate its effectiveness.

How does the Piracy Shield work ?

Introduced in 2023, this system is managed by the Autorità per le Garanzie nelle Comunicazioni (AGCOM), the equivalent of Arcom in France. It involves mobilizing legal and technical means to block illegal streams much more quickly than in the past and prosecute pirates. Internet service providers are particularly involved. The Italian authorities have praised its effectiveness and say they hope it will significantly reduce piracy in the country.

A year later, it is now time for an initial assessment. Researchers from the University of Padua wanted to know more. Quoted by TorrentFreak, David Maffei, one of the authors of the study, thus underlines:

The project was born from the need to collect information on the functioning of Piracy Shield, as well as on the evaluation of its effectiveness. By analyzing network flows, we want to be able to distinguish video streams from other types of traffic and identify the differences between ordinary traffic and pirated traffic.

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They acknowledge that they lacked certain data to deliver a complete diagnosis, in particular due to a lack of transparency. However, they note:

The graph highlights that illegal traffic shows significant peaks in volume during football match times, indicated by the dotted vertical lines. These peaks coincide temporally with the start and end of sporting events, suggesting a strong correlation between suspected pirate traffic and the unauthorized transmission of sports content.

According to the scientists, the Piracy Shield has indeed shown “some effectiveness” in reducing illegal traffic. However, it seems that piracy still has a bright future ahead of it, especially since some Internet users have the ability to bypass the blocks, according to researchers.

Lowering prices: the only solution?

In fact, it seems that most technological solutions are doomed to failure. We have already seen in the past that pirates know how to react to continue broadcasting or viewing illegal streams. According to many experts, the only credible solution to reduce IPTV consumption is to drastically lower the prices of legal offers to convince the general public to come back.

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