Illegal sports streaming, soon a distant memory?

[Chewy_fox]

No quarter for pirates! This is the message conveyed by article 10 of the bill "aimed at democratizing sport in France". The latter will be examined in public session in the National Assembly for three days, starting this Wednesday, March 17. The deputies have been working on this law for three years and added at the last moment article 10, which aims to fight more effectively against illegal broadcasts of sports competitions. Initially included in the government's audiovisual bill, it was finally dropped due to the health crisis. The deputies therefore added it in a timely manner to the proposed law on sport. Its probable adoption by the majority is enough to relieve an entire sector, which has been screaming for a legislative response for several years.

“ Finally! ” Exclaims a leader of a French broadcaster. " It's not too early. It's been years since it should have been implemented, but it's never too late ." Since the beginning of the 2010 decade, the development of technologies, the proliferation of pirate broadcasts and the increasingly irreproachable quality of these have worried the rights holders (channels that buy the broadcasting rights for sports competitions). In addition to the streaming sites that abound on the Internet, developed services such as IPTV ( Internet Protocol TV ) have emerged. For a subscription of around fifty euros per year, consumers have illegal access to several thousand channels in optimal quality. Including all sports channels.

Last December, the High Authority for the Dissemination of Works and the Protection of Rights on the Internet (Hadopi) published a report revealing the extent of the problem . On average, the illicit audience for sports competitions is two million people per month, with football attracting 77% of illicit consumers, ahead of tennis (44%) and rugby (43%). " In December 2020, we had 3.2 million unique users of " illegal streaming, " an increase of 29% compared to December 2019, " said Pauline Blassel, secretary general of Hadopi, before adding : "It is difficult to assess the extent of the losses, but the Council of State spoke of 800 million euros when the broadcasters themselves mentioned 500 million euros . "Pauline Blassel also specifies that it is still difficult to accurately determine the number of users of IPTV services.

An increase in piracy in recent months

Hundreds of millions of euros which do not fill the coffers of the beneficiaries, " and therefore neither of amateur football ", adds Pauline Blassel. What to worry and to enrage the broadcasters. " This has been a major concern for several years. Among the broadcasters, we are unanimous: we must fight against this scourge. People are working for us to keep an eye on the evolution of piracy and try to get things done " , explains the leader of a channel holding rights. Broadcasters, so that their voices can be heard, have come together in the Association for the Protection of Sports Programs (APPS) and have continued to warn about the legal vacuum surrounding the illegal broadcasting of sports competitions.

And the last few months have not helped, especially in the world of football. " The arrival of Mediapro has contributed to the explosion of piracy ", explained Maxime Saada, chairman of the board of the Canal + group , to Le Figaro in early January . As in 2018, with the arrival of RMC Sport for the retransmission of the Champions League, the creation of the Téléfoot channel fragmented the market and pushed some consumers to opt for streaming or IPTV, particularly in the face of the cumulative prices of subscriptions. " The worst problem is the development of a large illegal offer which improves in quality, while on the other hand there are too many legal but too expensive offers.", supports Pauline Blassel.

" The value of audiovisual rights suffers and potential broadcasters are reluctant to make offers, " laments the leader of a channel. During the last call for tenders for Ligue 1 broadcast rights in early February, the extent of pirate offers, among other things, may have discouraged some players from getting involved. As a result, the rights were negotiated down to 49% in Ligue 1 for the end of the current season compared to their original price. " The new device will allow us to fight against this scourge, and preserve the value of TV rights for the years to come ", indicates Cédric Roussel, LREM deputy of the Alpes-Maritimes and co-rapporteur of the bill.

Not a sprint, but a marathon

A reaction therefore became urgent. With article 10 of the law "aimed at democratizing sport", France is inspired by the English and Portuguese models of combating pirate broadcasts. In January 2019, a meeting organized in the Senate gave the floor to the English and Portuguese representatives of this fight so that they present their strategies. " France will adopt an intermediate model: more protective of individual freedoms with the intervention of a judge and less liberal than the English model ", presents Pauline Blassel.

Concretely, to try to eradicate pirate broadcasts, rights holders can count on what is called a dynamic ordinance. The latter will make it possible to block, delete and dereference - thanks to the help of search engines - streaming sites and IPTV platforms illegally broadcasting sports competitions. And this, continuously. " Until then, we were chasing after distributors of illegal content. When we closed one, another reopened. From now on, content will be more targeted than sites, which should be more effective ", explains Me Viviane Gelles, lawyer in sports law and technology law.

To see alsoPiracy, the big winner of the passage of Ligue 1 on Mediapro?

In other words, article 10 will allow an acceleration of legal proceedings. The beneficiaries will not have to go back to the judge to request the blocking of a site, which will be done more quickly than today. The dynamic order, which will last for a sports season spread over twelve months, will also make it possible to tackle mirror sites and clones which reopen as soon as another site or IPTV service is closed. A method that has proven itself in England and Portugal. " In Portugal, we noticed that over time, there were fewer sites that reappeared than sites that disappeared. We will have to block, re-block, and start over, because it is a hyper resilient system.", explains Pauline Blassel, member of Hadopi who will occupy a role of" trusted third party "to support the channels holding rights, ISPs (Internet service providers) and search engines after the adoption of the text.

" We are in a different approach from what we have known in the past with the fight against piracy of cultural works. We are not attacking consumers, but we are drying up the economic sector of pirates and these sites which broadcast illegal streaming. We are trying to ensure that there is the least temptation, by reducing the visibility of sites on search engines as much as possible , "explains Cédric Roussel. Users " who switch to the dark side " according to the deputy will therefore not be worried, but the broadcasters on these illegal sites may be subject to prosecution, like these three men sentenced on March 10 to pay seven million euros in damages to rights holders for illegally retransmitting their content on the internet.

The device in application from next season?

In addition to interrupting and making access more difficult to illegal broadcasts, this text could discourage IPTV users. With the closure of more and more IPTV platforms, consumers could turn away from this practice for which they pay a subscription. Because if the IPTV sellers have well developed their offers, customer services are failing ... and reimbursements from dissatisfied users are unlikely. " It is sure that it will discourage people. And there is a large part of the population who prefers to respect the law. The fact that there is a provision that exists is important, " said Pauline Blassel.

And faced with the ingenuity of the pirates, Me Viviane Gelles thinks that the text makes it possible to guard against future advances: " The technique evolves very quickly, but the wording of the text is so broad that it must allow to understand precisely the evolution of technologies over time . " This article 10 is reassuring for broadcasters. " The adoption of this text will constitute a decisive step in the fight against the piracy of sports broadcasts ", announced the APPS in a press release published on January 29th .

Diluted in the bill which also attacks the governance of federations, access to sport for all and more generally the sporting economic model, article 10 could be adopted quickly after the government's decision to initiate accelerated procedure on this text. Its entry into force could be timely for football in particular, since the Professional Football League will soon have to propose a new call for tenders or negotiate by mutual agreement with broadcasters for the TV rights of Ligue 1 and Ligue 2. over the period 2021-2024. Cédric Roussel, co-rapporteur of the text, aims for a start of application " next season, so that rights holders can take advantage of this device". For these potential broadcasters, the scourge of piracy will remain in the back of their minds but should be less significant thanks to article 10. A form of relief, awaited for several years.

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