Italians who simply view pirate IPTV via illicit subscriptions have been warned for months that their activities could be reported to the judicial authorities for potential prosecution. As part of an investigation into a pirate IPTV subscription seller, a total of 23 people have appeared in court in recent months for simply buying a pirate package. Judges in two separate proceedings have now acquitted all 23 after concluding that this type of piracy isn’t actually a crime.
Because nobody will read the full report, they were all fined with 150 euros, which is the legal minimum. They were acquitted of criminal charges and related civil liability.
They were all paying a reseller, too, not just streaming or downloading freely available content.
Depending how long they had used the service they probably saved more than €150 just by not paying subscriptions to all the services they would need for the same content. Cost of doing business?
For them? Sure, maybe, although the top end of the fine bracket, as per the article, is 5000 eddies, so… probably won’t stay cost-effective long.
But the point is the headline suggests personal use of paid pirated media is legally supported in Italy, which it’s… not.
I still think the current system needs fundamental reform and while this whole ordeal doesn’t say much about what is and isn’t allowed in the current system, it does show what a clusterfuck of enforcement and regulation this is at the moment.
That is a fair point though honestly I don’t think the end user should be on the hook at all, it should be the people providing the service as they are the ones effectively running counterfeit streaming services.
You have to be a special kind of stupid to pay for this kind of service with your personal card. But if you get caught a second time then I can’t have any sympathy for you.
This situation reminds me of that drug dealer (always in italy) that accepted payments for his merch using his own POS (idk the word in English, it’s one of those terminals to accept payments with cards).
They used their personal prepaid card (one registered to their own name and issued by the public postal service) to pay for the iptv sub.
Happy as I am because this shows that there is no crime in watching those streams, I can’t but stand in awe at the sheer stupidity of these guys.
Justice prevails!
