Cloudflare has been told it must immediately cease providing support to illegal online portals such as Guardaserie.
The ruling from the Civil Court in Rome also orders the US-based content delivery firm to prevent user access to such sites.
The case was brought by Mediaset against Guardaserie, after it unlawfully published videos of Mediaset TV shows including Amici di Maria de Filippi, Ciao Darwin, Grande Fratello, La Pupa e il Secchione and Temptation Island.
According to a technical analysis released by Mediaset, Guardaserie used Cloudflare’s services to repeatedly change its domain name extensions over time, circumventing controls put in place by the media regulator Agcom, and making it difficult to identify the portals and the locations of pirate servers.
The court found Cloudflare liable for “facilitating the illegal distribution of audiovisual programs” to which Mediaset holds exclusive rights.
In addition to ordering Cloudflare to immediately stop providing services to these pirate portals, the company was fined €1,000 for each day of non-compliance with the court’s ruling.
Mediaset expressed satisfaction with the decision, which follows a series of anti-piracy rulings from courts in Rome and Milan.
