Italy arrests members of €300 million streaming piracy ring

A recent development in Italy has revealed a significant piracy ring that cost rights holders, including big names like Sky, DAZN, Netflix, Disney+, and Spotify, about €300 million ($348 million) in damages. The financial police in Italy conducted an operation targeting a sophisticated streaming piracy network that revolved around an application called CINEMAGOAL. This technology connected users’ devices to foreign servers, decrypting streaming content illegally.

Virtual machines were constantly operating on Italian soil, capturing and retransmitting access codes from legitimate subscriptions belonging to fictitious account holders every three minutes. This system was able to bypass security checks from streaming platforms, making it challenging to detect users since it did not require a connection associated with a specific IP address. Users could purchase subscriptions for €40 to €130 per year.

Prosecutors in Bologna, in collaboration with EU judicial cooperation body Eurojust, successfully seized foreign servers storing decryption data and the application’s source code. Parallel operations were also carried out in France and Germany. Additionally, the Guardia di Finanza discovered the use of traditional illegal streaming devices, known in Italy as “pezzotto,” and plans to issue fines to 1,000 identified pirate system users ranging from €154 to €5,000.

It’s a significant bust that sheds light on the ongoing battle against piracy in the streaming entertainment industry.