Free TV internet under attack in Italy!

The Italian Guardia di Finanza has applied legislative measures issued by the Procura della Repubblica in Milan against internet portals giving free access to sports events in steaming, on account of a compliant Sky made last October 2005. Sky acquired the ownership rights of the italian soccer league for satellite broadcasting. In particular, two web sites have been closed: www.calciolibero.com and www.coolstreaming.it.

According to what repubblica.it and many other online newspapers reported with the same identical words (having maybe the same source) we learn that .. the mechanism was rather complex. Video signal would be stolen from two Chinese networks that legally broadcasted matches. Then, site managers would put it at everyone’s disposal on internet..

I was working, but when reading this I just started on my chair and the reason is that it completely twists reality showing an inadequate knowledge of the subject and unfairly criminalizes people.. Thus, it would be appropriate to explain how free internet TV works and to make these journalist realize they should be more attentive and should, when not in possess of the needed expertise, delegate the task to those more competent.

Streaming, Tv internet and sport

The events at issue, namely A and B Series Italian football matches, are usually legally broadcasted by a great number of foreign stations ( I repeat, loads of them: Chinese, Korean, Brazilian and many other ones, not only a couple of Chinese channels). Many of these stations broadcast their signal in internet as well, exactly as RAI (Italian TV) does for documentaries, fiction and much more. Fancy watching an episode of “Ulisse”?? Click here “Live” events are broadcasted in streaming, an apposite protocol to send the signal live, reachable through special software for internet TV.

Some of the most well-known are PPlive, TV Ants and some others. In the same way one uses a browser in order to display a web site, those software are used to connect to a live broadcast by a specific internet address.

Thus foreign TVs are able to broadcast whatever they want, being entitled to it. There is no offence. As a consequence, users can utilize streaming software to connect to any broadcast exactly as I can gain access to any site through my browser. The law provides obvious restrictions but gaining access to a live broadcast does not amount to a crime in itself. Let us suppose a satellite TV in China acquires rights for the documentary “Ulisse”: those Chinese who connect here, are they committing a crime?

How to connect to matches

Video signals of these internet TV are reachable by simple addresses. I repeat, exactly as I input in the browser the URL “google.com” to connect to Google, in the same way , in order to display the signal of a Brazilian TV broadcasting a live event, I will insert in my software the relevant streaming address, reachable from the whole world as google.com is.

Once done it, I will start receiving the signal and watching the transmission. The softwares (PPLive, TV Ants etc) have nothing to do with the removed sites, they are application specifically created to get the signal voluntarily broadcasted in internet by TVs from China and many other nations. Besides the Chinese version, also programs’ English versions are available, released for the signal to be caught in the rest of the world as well.

The stolen Signal

This is certainly the most ridiculous concept I happened to read in internet over the last few years. A signal is nothing but a signal, it cannot be stolen. It is send from the broadcast to the whole net and then displayed through its own address.

Even without connecting to coolstreaming.it or to calciolibero.com, one can find live broadcast addresses practically everywhere in the net, for example here, a thoroughly legal site (in Italy the IP of this web site has been banned and is not reacheable anymore). Just one of the channels in the list often transmits Italian championship football matches. What is the meaning of the two sites would steal illegally football images from Sky (as reported by several newspapers on internet) then?

A signal is not stolen. Such a statement makes no sense at all being technically incorrect and leads to an unjust criminalization. Them who have watched – watch – will watch matches on internet are not cheating Sky, they simply watch legal signals by legal foreign TVs who legally broadcast in internet.

The real inconsistency

The sites in question simply carried totally legal streaming addresses released in the net by foreign TVs.

Even if one considers this to be out of law (which is anyway still to be proved), it bears a great difference with the statement according to which “A signal is illegally stolen and then spread through one’s own programs”, since the latter is technically wrong and ethically incorrect. I can surely understand how such a company as Sky tends to protect dearly paid rights, but Sky rights on matches can prevent me from legally watching a Chinese internet TV??

Even though a company has the obvious right to look after its own interests, it’s necessary to be extremely careful not to report inaccuracies who tend to unfairly criminalize and defame, unless this is the very purpose of it ,in the style kill one in order to educate hundred (famous statement from a movie by Alberto Sordi). It is also a sensational marketing mistake this made by Sky, since the LEGAL vision of matches in internet does not affect at all satellite TV market.

Those who intend watching matches will keep subscribing to satellite, DTT and cable services. Those who have not yet subscribed surely will not do it just because the LEGAL vision of matches in internet is not permitted any longer. The only result they might obtain is to bother honest users at their detriment and to build a not exactly pleasant image of the company. The only simple problem is a legislative gap in the answer to a straightforward question: is it legal to link to these broadcasts on Italian sites? If yes, how is this related to the idea of censorship?

Conclusions

The site coolstreaming.it has been shut being guilty of having spread basic pieces of information. It will be maybe back on coolstreaming.us with a new release of the mediacenter without direct links to matches streaming, which will anyway keep existing and being reachable as they were before.

The italian Guardia di Finanza is forcing a lot of italians providers to ban many IP's providing legal internet tv. This operation will only bring an increasing degree of ill feeling by quite a few users towards Sky, an incredible hidden censorship action on the Net and the umpteenth evidence of doubtful expertise by those who spread news in an inaccurate and harmful way supplying yet one more case with regard to why italian journalists hate blogs. We are at disposal for explanations and investigations on the subject which can be inserted using the form below.