France adopts ‘dynamic’ piracy injunctions
Sports rights owners are hailing new laws in France which could give them the upper hand in their fight against online pirates.
France’s National Assembly has approved a bill granting courts the power to issue so-called dynamic injunctions, blocking websites and servers that are broadcasting illegal sports content.
Crucially, the injunctions would last a year, saving rights owners the need to go back to court to keep them in place. They would also apply to “mirror” websites created after the issuing of the judge’s decision. Sports rights owners pursuing online pirates are often faced with a slew of mirror sites that spring up after one is taken down.
HADOPI, the French anti-piracy agency, has estimated that illegal sports content costs the industry more than €1 billion ($1.19 billion) a year, with a loss of more than €300 million to French tax coffers.
Legal makeover
Before the latest legislative reforms, rights owners were still able to obtain emergency injunctions from courts in France. But lawyers speaking to WIPR said the rapidly evolving nature of online piracy meant it was often able to outrun the law.
“In principle, the French legal framework seemed very competitive to fight any technological forms of online piracy,” said Smaïn Guennad of French law firm De Gaulles Fleurance & Associés.
“Unfortunately, none of those provisions could efficiently address the online piracy issue specifically due to the obsolescence of the legal enforcement measures—with respect to the nature of piracy and the possibility to easily change IP addresses.”
The new laws, meanwhile, should ensure a system of “fast, dynamic and live blocking orders,” in a move Guennad said represented “significant progress” and a “very useful tool” for sports rights owners.
As ever, though, it remains to be seen how it will work in practice: “It is necessary to monitor how this new regulation will be implemented before the French jurisdictions. The first case laws rendered by the French jurisdiction will be key.”
Dynamic injunctions of this type are becoming an increasingly commonly used tool in the industry, as rights owners across different jurisdictions demand better legal instruments to stave off the threat of piracy. The Delhi High Court confirmed the legitimacy of such orders in 2019, while they have also been adopted in Mexico at the request of La Liga, Spain’s top-flight football league. In 2019, the Premier League also obtained a landmark judgment from the Irish High Court, which enforced the blocking of pirate websites in real time.
Endorsement from rights owners
Major sports rights owners such as Qatari broadcaster BeIN Media are hailing the new law as a major improvement in France’s copyright laws.
Yousef Al-Obaidly, BeIN CEO, said the “legislation marks the start of the fightback, which couldn’t be more urgent given piracy is reaching the point of no return. For many programmes today, illegal viewing out-numbers legal viewing—which is truly shocking, especially when broadcast revenue supports the entire sports economy.”
BeIN has been particularly vocal about the threat from online piracy, following a long-running saga with Saudi Arabia’s alleged support for illegal broadcaster beoutQ. The Qatari company has also been active in the French courts, obtaining €7 million in damages alongside French broadcasters last week, after a series of piracy convictions.
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