A July 2026 report by the European Parliament explains how live-content piracy is no longer a marginal form of infringement, but a structured and economically resilient segment of the piracy ecosystem; particularly in relation to sports broadcasting.
Titled Countering online piracy of sports and broadcast in the EU, the report also shows that the current EU and national response remains fragmented, with considerable differences in legal remedies, technical implementation and the speed of intervention available to rights holders. In practice, this fragmentation weakens the predictability and consistency of enforcement within the internal market.
Key findings
The EU framework for live-content piracy relies on the combined operation of the InfoSoc Directive, IPRED (Directive 2004/48/EC of the European Parliament on the enforcement of intellectual property rights), the EU’s DSA (Digital Services Act) and DSM (Digital Single Market) Directive, rather than on a dedicated harmonized regime. It provides useful legal bases, but it was not designed for the speed and mutability of live retransmissions.
According to the report, unauthorized live streaming does fall within EU copyright protection, yet the existing rules were drafted mainly for on-demand and static uses, not the real-time nature of live broadcasts.
The DSA and Article 17 of the DSM Directive add useful notice-and-action and platform obligations, but they do not create live-content-specific deadlines and still need to be combined with injunctions and cooperation mechanisms to work effectively in real time.
THe EU’s intellectual property directive (IPRED) remains the key enforcement instrument because it allows injunctions against both direct infringers and intermediaries. This has enabled national courts to develop static, dynamic and, in some cases, live blocking orders.
Infringements are up, suspensions remain low
Data cited by the report, which was collected throughout 2024 and the first half of 2025, revealed a sharp increase in infringements, with a total of 26.2 million takedown notices submitted to intermediaries in relation to the unauthorised retransmission of live content.
At the same time, intermediary responsiveness remains critically inadequate: only 11% of notices resulted in the suspension of unauthorised retransmissions over the period examined, while the remaining 89% failed to produce any suspension, with performance deteriorating from a 19% suspension rate in the second half of 2024 to just 5% in the first half of 2025.
Unintended collateral damage
In addition, site blocking isn’t necessarily accurate. One example was in Spain, where one report detailed empirical evidence of extensive collateral effects arising from IP-based blocking measures to curb unlawful livestreaming of LALIGA football matches during early 2026.
In several one‐hour intervals, LALIGA’s blocking of only 4 to 20 IP addresses resulted in more than 400,000 domains becoming inaccessible, illustrating the disproportionate reach of IP‐based interventions where shared infrastructure is involved. The report further identifies that these domains are hosted on major content delivery and hosting providers, including Cloudflare, Amazon, Squarespace, Akamai and Microsoft, with a total of 7,441 IP addresses affected across 36 autonomous systems.
The report stressee that the impact concerns not only neutral or purely commercial services, but also websites of public interest, including non‐governmental organisations, media outlets, government portals and messaging platforms.
Why it matters
The study addresses the spread of live-content piracy in the EU, focusing on unauthorised sports and broadcast streaming via illegal IPTV services and apps. The analysis is focused on the EU legal framework, Commission Recommendation (EU) 2023/1018, national enforcement practices, and technological tools. The study identifies key legal and policy gaps. A set of recommendations is presented, in order to strengthen, harmonise, and accelerate anti-piracy enforcement across the Union.
Anyone seeking data on the nature and extent of online infringement on a country-by-country and EU-wide basis will find it in this report.
An independent assessment released in 2025 found that, as a non-legislative act of encouragement, and not binding law, the European Commission’s recommendation has had little impact on piracy, and that “mitigation efforts are mostly ignored.”
The EU has since received a wealth of input toward improving the EU’s copyright directive, but Copyright advocates including media, enterainment and sports interests want faster response to infringement while Internet companies like Google and Cloudflare decry heavy handedness. AI companies want copyright exceptions.
Further reading
Countering online piracy of sports and broadcast in the EU, Report. July 2026. by Prof. Dr Giovanni Maria Riccio, Professor of Comparative Law, University of Salerno. Policy Department for Justice, Civil Liberties and Institutional Affairs Directorate-General for Citizens’ Rights, Justice and Institutional Affairs PE 783.147. European Parliament
Collateral damage of IP-based blocking during LALIGA football streaming in Spain: Evidence from OONI measurements. June 30, 2026. by Arturo Filastò (OONI), Maria Xynou (OONI), Mehul Gulati (OONI). Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI).
2026 review of EC’s Copyright Directive: Internet, media and AI stakeholders all at odds. Article. July 8, 2026. by Steven Hawley. Piracy Monitor
European Commission’s 2023 antipiracy recommendations have had little effect: Live Content Coalition. Article. March 17, 2025. by Steven Hawley. Piracy Monitor
Commission recommenda actions to combat online piracy of sports and other live events. Report (Landing page). May 3, 2023. European Commission
