EU and France take aim at online piracy of live sports with tougher enforcement tools

The European Commission on 20 November published its assessment of its Recommendation No. 2023/2018 on combating online piracy of sports and other live events, finding that voluntary measures have fallen short of meaningful progress.

In February, France introduced its new bill introducing a new bill to enable real-time blocking measures during live broadcasts.

While the Commission's assessment noted some progress, it concludes that the recommendation has not significantly reduced the overall level of piracy of live events, due to its non-binding nature. In particular, the Commission highlighted:

• The lack of effective handling of takedown notices (no improvement in the prompt treatment of takedown notices) by certain categories of hosting service providers.
• The reluctance of some intermediaries to cooperate with rightsholders, although certain voluntary cooperation agreements have been concluded between rightsholders and intermediaries.

In light of these results, the Commission will examine where further EU action is needed to better tackle live-event piracy. These include reassessing the contribution of online intermediaries and exploring new measures to promote wider and more consistent use of dynamic injunctions across Member States, together with more systematic cross border cooperation between national authorities. A timetable for this assessment is yet to be published.

In France, on 4 February, Bill No. 2432 was introduced in the French National Assembly to reinforce the fight against piracy of live sports content by enabling real‑time blocking measures during illegal live broadcasts of sports events and competitions.

The bill aims at strengthening the already existing system implemented by Article L333-10 of the French Sports Code. The key measures it proposes include:

• Extending the right to act against online piracy of live sports to commercial companies created by a professional league for the marketing and management of the rights to broadcast the sporting events or competitions it organises or of the audiovisual exploitation rights assigned to sports organisations (under articles L.333-1 or L.333-2-1 of the French Sports Code).
• Confirming for both sports events and competitions that the mechanism implemented by article L.333-10 applies.
• Establishing a real‑time blocking system during live broadcasts, when authorised by a court order. Rights‑holders must transmit identification data to France's audiovisual and digital communication regulator ARCOM, so that blocking instructions can be automatically relayed through an automated system controlled by ARCOM to technical intermediaries, including for illegal services not yet identified when the order was issued. Rights‑holders must certify that the targeted services are illicitly broadcasting (or primarily aimed at broadcasting) the event, keep and update evidence, request lifting of measures when they are no longer justified, and inform affected service providers;
• Providing safeguards to be detailed by ARCOM to allow oversight to prevent over-blocking and to allow targeted services the right to challenge measures urgently, including during the live event.
• Reinforcing criminal enforcement with new offences and higher criminal fines (for an organised group, up to €750,000 for individuals or up to €3,750,000 for companies) for operators of illicit services and promoters of illicit sports streaming.

Why it matters: The EU anti‑piracy framework for live events is likely to be tightened in the near future, which could give rightsholders stronger and faster enforcement tools (via wider use of dynamic injunctions) while imposing stricter obligations, scrutiny and cross‑border cooperation requirements on online intermediaries under the context of the DSA.

If adopted, the French law will significantly increase live‑event enforcement pressure on intermediaries and illegal streaming services and could serve as a national model within the broader EU effort against live sports piracy.