Italy's Financial Police announced on Friday that they had busted an?advanced streaming piracy ring which caused damages of approximately EUR300 million ($348million) to?rights owners?such as Sky DAZN Netflix Disney+ Spotify and Spotify.

The Guardia Di Finanza police said that the operation was aimed at targeting previously unknown technology, built around CINEMAGOAL. This application connected users' devices with foreign servers, which illegally decrypted streamed content.

Police said that virtual machines were operating around the clock in?Italy, and that they captured and transmitted access codes for legitimate subscriptions to fictitious account holders every three minutes.

It was harder to detect the users because it bypassed security checks on streaming platforms and didn't require a direct connection with an IP address. Subscriptions ranged from EUR40-EUR130 per year.

The police reported that prosecutors in Bologna worked with the EU's judicial cooperation agency Eurojust to secure the?seizure? of foreign servers which stored decryption and source code for?the application?. Parallel operations were also carried out in France, Germany and other EU countries.

The Guardia Di Finanza also uncovered the use traditional illegal streaming devices commonly known in Italy as "pezzotto" and will issue fines ranging from EUR154 up to EUR5,000 for 1,000 identified pirate users. Reporting by Alvise Armllini, Editing by Alex Richardson. $1 = 0.8616 Euros

(source: Reuters)