EU Commission combats illegal streaming of sports events

The European Commission Recommendation 2023/1018, of May 4th, seeks to combat online piracy of sports and other live events.
Articles 25/05/2023

In the digital environment of recent years, illegal streaming services, providing access to unauthorised retransmissions of live sports events, have multiplied exponentially. Inevitably, sports event organisers and broadcasters are now facing a significant impact on their revenues.

Broadcasters of other live events (e.g., concerts, operas and musicals) face a similar issue: as the exploitation of a live event, meaning the possibility to generate income, is limited to its duration, online piracy causes severe harm to the economic value of the broadcast. Additionally, there are other economic harms, as illegal streaming services cause a decrease in ticket sales, advertising revenues and user subscription fees.

In contrast, the protection of sports events still needs to be developed compared to the one conferred to other live events. While the latter are usually protected under intellectual property law, granting its authors several remedies against infringers and intermediaries of the broadcasts, the former remain outside the scope of protection of the Union copyright and related rights, meaning sports event organisers cannot “avail themselves of the rights and remedies existing under the Union intellectual property law (…) to take action about unauthorised retransmissions of live sports events”. As such, in the opinion of the European Commission, the protection of live sports events is somewhat limited since it is mainly done on a contractual basis or, in a small number of Member States, through intellectual property rights granted under their national laws.

Because of such status quo, the European Union Recommendation 2023/1018, of May 4th, seeks to encourage all Member States and relevant authorities to implement effective measures against such unauthorised retransmissions of live sports events. However, by its very nature and specificity, it is essential to remember that the remedies against the infringement of live transmissions must be much faster to minimise the damages.

Accordingly, the European Commission is focusing on the implementation of:

Blocking injunctions, which target the Domain Name or IP address and prevent consumers from accessing websites where the live event is broadcasted illegally;

Dynamic injunctions, which allow such court orders to rapidly cover new internet locations that became available immediately after the blocking injunction but are broadcasting the same live event, avoiding the so-called mirror websites (the same website under a different domain name or IP address);

A monitoring system with the support of the European Union Intellectual Property Office, specifically, the European Observatory on Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights (“EUIPO Observatory”).

Curiously, the injunctions above will target the illegal streaming services per se as well as the providers of intermediary services, regardless of their lack of liability. By these means, if a broadcast signal is being misused, the injunction will normally be able to target its source, consequently terminating and blocking the unauthorised retransmission of the live event.

On the other hand, the sports event organisers and broadcasters are also compelled to increase their commercial offers’ availability, affordability, and attractiveness to prompt consumers to move away from illegal streaming services (e.g., illegal IPTV, Apps and Websites). A decrease in the prices of such services could mean that important live event would become accessible to the general population, thus reducing the number of users accessing pirated content.

The European Commission, while working together with the EUIPO Observatory, will analyse the effects of this recommendation in the evolution of consumption patterns of unauthorised retransmission of live events to determine whether additional steps must be taken by no later than November 17th, 2025.


The content of this information does not constitute any specific legal advice; the latter can only be given when faced with a specific case. Please contact us for any further clarification or information deemed necessary in what concerns the application of the law.

Authors

Practice Areas

  • Intellectual Property
  • Sports Law

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