Piracy: agreement between ISPs & APPS to strengthen the protection of sports broadcasts

The "four main French internet service providers" (Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom, Free) and the Association for the Protection of Sports Programmes (APPS) have signed an agreement that aims to "strengthen the fight against the illegal distribution of online sports content," announced Arcom on 18/01/2023.

"Arcom, APPS, FFTélécoms (Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom) and Iliad (Free) are delighted with this agreement which will strengthen and accelerate the measures taken to protect sports events. Indeed, the parties have agreed both on good practices in judicial matters and on the assumption of the costs of automating the blocking measures notified by Arcom upon referral by the rights holders," explained the regulatory authority.

"Over the past year, Arcom has received 85 referrals from sports rights holders concerning ten sports competitions. The Authority has notified 787 mirror site domain names to ISPs, which have applied the blocking measures with particular diligence. In total, thanks to these actions, plus the services blocked by ISPs in execution of initial court decisions, 1,299…