The European Commission Recommendation of 4 May 2023 on combatting online piracy of sports and other live events was a non-legislative act of encouragement, and not binding law. And, looking back from an early 2025 perspective, it appears that the Recommendation has had little impact on piracy, and that “mitigation efforts are mostly ignored.”
So says a February report by Grant Thornton, released by the Live Content Coalition, which contains an analysis for the full year 2024 and compares it with a previous analysis for the first half of that year, which was released in November.
Highlights of the report
More than 81% of at least 10.8 million unauthorized retransmissions detected did not result in suspension of the transmission.
- 15% of notices were addressed by the intermediary but did not result in a suspension. This represents a deterioration from the first half of 2024 (H1) where 18% of notices were at least addressed
- 66% of notices were not addressed at all. This represents a slight increase from H1, where 63% of notices were not addressed.
Notices were submitted to intermediaries (either DSPs, Online Platforms or Other
hosting providers)
- Only 2.7% of infringements were acted upon within 30 minutes. 20% of them took more than 120 minutes for action.
- 52% of notices were submitted to DSPs. Only 11% of these were suspended during live transmissions, lower than the average suspension rate of 19%
- 10% of notices were submitted to Online Platforms. 98% of these were suspended during live transmission
- 38% of notices were submitted to all Other hosting providers of streaming services (“Others”). Only 8% of notices led to suspension
Coming into focus
Identifying the location or source of illegal streams remains challenging, as consumers use tools like VPNs and DNS Proxies to bypass IP address checking. However, using network trace information, rightsholders can estimate the probable geo-location of unauthorised transmissions.
Since the report’s findings are based on data from only a few major stakeholders, the full extent of online piracy issues is expected to be much larger. The analysts expect to have an even clearer view of the impact of the EC Recommendation with the final set of data in July 2025.
Call to action
The LCC “…calls on the European Union to address the issue of piracy and particularly live content piracy. Piracy has and continues to drain Europe’s creative and cultural ecosystems, sports and live performance sectors depriving workers and industries from billions in annual revenues and undermining the sustainability of an essential part of our social and economic fabric.”
The LCC’s members include
Further reading
The European Commission Recommendation on combatting online piracy of live events has limited impact after 17 months, Version 2. February 2025. By Grant Thornton for the Live Content Coalition
Commission Recommendation (EU) 2023/1018 of 4 May 2023 on combating piracy of sports and other live events. Policy declaration. May 4, 2023. Official Journal of the European Union.
Why it matters
LCC’s mission is similar to that of other media industry stakeholders that have established their own anti-piracy initiatives. It burst on the scene in 2022 with a statement expressing disappointment that the EU had not included live content piracy for the following year. LCC also released a “Call to action” to “End live piracy now,” with 108 signatories.
