12 years have passed since the entry into force of the famous “Sinde-Wert Law”, one of the most controversial in the history of the Internet in Europe, with the creation of the second section of the Intellectual Property Commission ; a government agency that had the power to order the blocking and shutdown of websites without the prior approval of a judge.
Despite the great debate which has formed around this law and its constitutionality and its legality within the European framework, in practice its effects He was barely noticed in the world of Spanish pirates
According to the latest Bulletin of the Second Section (pdf), which covers the work carried out during the first quarter of 2024, the organization is on the verge of reaching 4,000 blocked or closed subdomains in Europe; more precisely, they are 3,972 pages offering music, book and video game content“very dangerous” websites according to the report due to the high volume of content they serve to users without the permission of their owners.
While this figure may seem shocking, it requires some context. In reality, the blocking of these thousands of subdomains is the result of blocking only 848 Internet domains; the result of the complete processing of 447 of the 909 applications presented throughout the history of the Second Section.
A very common tactic used by hackers is to create subdomains to bypass blocks; In other words, changing the address of the page, sometimes with a simple letter or number, so that the blocking is no longer effective. It’s this “cat and mouse game,” where hackers change their address and the second section blocks it, that has resulted in these thousands of blocked domains.
Domains blocked by the second section of the Intellectual Property Commission
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Another important detail that the report highlights is that in reality, the number of blocked domains has decreased compared to the same quarter of the previous two years. This is most likely a symptom of a change in the habits of pirates, both users and providers of illegal content. In other words, we are talking about how pirates have moved to IPTV, gradually abandoning download pages, either directly or through torrents and other P2P protocols.
This is a clear change in the fight against piracy over the past year. In just 12 months, arrests and fines have multiplied for offering access to pirated IPTV, broadcasting unlicensed content such as football matches, films and series. And for users, the possibility of fines for watching pirated IPTV is still very real and pursued by copyright agencies; although at the moment this possibility has not been confirmed by the government.