Letter to the EU requesting legislative action against audiovisual piracy
Key stakeholders in the media, security, entertainment, and sports sectors, including Lega Calcio Serie A, the English Premier League, and Spain's LaLiga, along with relevant consumer associations, today sent a letter to Executive Vice-President Virkkunen and Commissioner Micallef to express serious concerns about the impact of illegal live streaming on their businesses, consumers, and the economy, calling for urgent legislative action by the European Commission to combat audiovisual piracy.
Investments in infrastructure, technology, and human resources to produce original content and offer European consumers high-quality live experiences continue to be threatened by criminal organizations.
The affected sectors have been voicing their concerns for many years, repeatedly calling for meaningful action at the EU level. While acknowledging the important work done by the EC in addressing this challenge through the 2023 Recommendation on combating online piracy, its implementation has yet to produce tangible results.
The data collected shows that in 2024, 81% of the millions of illegal live streams detected in Europe were not suspended, and less than 3% were stopped within 30 minutes of a notification being sent. The use of pirated IPTV platforms and devices is also growing, and the damage to businesses is real, with estimated annual losses of €2.2 billion for the Italian audiovisual industry, €1.8 billion in Germany, and €1.5 billion in France.
The 34 signatories of the letter, therefore, urgently call for the adoption of legislative measures in line with the EC's previous commitments, which have been repeatedly supported by the European Parliament, including in its report on the role of EU policies in defining the European sports model of 7 October.
These measures shall ensure that:
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Upon receipt of a report, infringing content must be removed as quickly as possible and, in any case, within a maximum of 30 minutes.
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EU-wide, real-time dynamic blocking orders (including IP address blocking) covering mirror sites and successor domains must be available in all Member States.
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Intermediaries (including, but not limited to, platforms, hosts, VPNs, CDNs, and app stores) must introduce and maintain robust Know Your Business Customer (KYBC) policies.
Finally, the signatories in turn commit to promoting fair competition, innovation and responsibility, making themselves available to collaborate and support the work of the Commission with data, insights and technical contributions, in order to pass a law that protects rights holders and audiovisual content from the threat of digital piracy.
The Lega Calcio Serie A firmly reiterates the need for resolute action by the European Union to more effectively combat digital piracy on our continent. It is now clear that the illegal broadcast of live content causes significant economic damage not only to the entire football system, but also to the entire audiovisual sector and to honest citizens, who regularly pay a subscription to watch their favorite team or films and TV series, " said Luigi De Siervo , CEO of the Lega Calcio Serie A. " In addition to what we are doing in Italy with the Piracy Shield platform against illegal IPTV and with recent measures that allow rights holders to prosecute "pirates" and those who access illegal content under civil and criminal law, we now need to crack down on VPNs used to circumvent blocks. With this letter to the Commission, we intend to underline the urgency of adopting new, more effective regulatory tools that are more in line with the dynamics that pirates are attempting to adopt in order to safeguard the value of our product . "
The original press release can be found here: (https://www.legaseriea.it/it/legaseriea/lega-serie-a/lettera-all-ue-per-richiedere-un-intervento-legislativo-contro-la-pirateria-audiovisiva)
