Affected content owners are advised to keep abreast of industry developments. In particular, it may be a good idea to examine the changing ways in which consumers pirate media to better understand what the future holds for piracy and where resources may be allocated to prevent software piracy. It should be noted that only a tiny fraction of the population consumes exclusively pirated content. Most use a mix of legal and illegal sources. Here, too, there are huge differences between countries. In France, almost 10% of consumers steal only music, compared to only 1.5% in the Netherlands. The authors then deal specifically with such a civil law remedy, which is used in particular against online piracy, the freezing order. They note that, although there is no definition of blocking orders at EU level, the term is used generally and generally to refer to such injunctions that oblige ISPs to take the necessary technical measures to block or disable access to a website or platform. Some national jurisdictions have started to allow the dynamic use of freeze orders, i.e.
the extension of blocking orders to future URLs and not just existing websites. These dynamic arrangements are recognized as more flexible in the event of repeated violations, as is often the case when it comes to piracy of live sports content. In some cases, live blocking orders have also been issued, i.e. injunctions to repeatedly block a website for each illegal live broadcast. These remedies have been considered effective by the courts because they can be enforced in a timely manner and therefore impede live active broadcasts. In any case, the report highlights that in all countries where blocking orders are issued by courts, they ensure that these orders respect the principle of proportionality based on the fundamental rights of users and services such as data protection, freedom of expression or freedom to conduct a business. Interestingly, too much “availability” can also become a problem. With content spread across multiple subscription services, legal enjoyment of movies and TV shows has become quite expensive. The EU report also noted this point. The main methods of piracy of movies and TV shows are either direct streaming of content hosted by one website usually indexed by another, or torrenting, which, as a P2P sharing system, allows for the fast download of often high-quality content. The latter is more traceable and illegal than streaming, as files are downloaded – and often downloaded to “see” the file to other torrent users.
A new study by the EU Intellectual Property Office shows that piracy is still prevalent among young people in the EU. Lack of affordable content is most often cited as a motivation. Interestingly, piracy rates among respondents with a university degree are almost twice as high as among those with little or no education. Europe has a serious piracy problem. We look at what is being done to challenge this practice and how countries differ. The piracy rate in the EU has risen from 39% in 2016 to 33% this year. While many young people admit to hacking something in the past twelve months, about a third of this group did so “by accident.” That leaves 21 per cent who deliberately engage in piracy. Meanwhile, the majority of young people in the EU (60%) have not hacked anything. Other possible reasons include credit card theft (49%), risk of being caught and punished (36%), or that perpetrators and legal services could suffer financial harm (26%). According to the above model, the fundamental negative effect of piracy is that creators are deprived of their remuneration, which, along with the need for self-realization, expression or recognition, is one of the most important impulses that trigger creative impulses in a society.
Are we then facing the end of culture because of the popularity of piracy? On Saturday, the European Parliament passed the Digital Services Act, which aims to enable all European Union countries to fight digital piracy and other crimes committed online. The legislation can be summarized as follows: “What is illegal offline is also illegal online.” So it`s no surprise that Google Trends shows us that torrenting is more popular where users are less likely to be penalized. Searching for the most popular torrent site ThePirateBay peaks in European countries with less stringent copyright laws like Croatia, Sweden, and Greece. In contrast, Germany, a country where the app is stricter, is moving towards legal gray streaming, and the popular streaming site Movie4k is the most sought after in Germany. The main part of the report examines national remedies, enforcement rules and procedures available to rightholders and licensees to combat online piracy of their content. Despite a diversity of national approaches, some trends can be identified. As regards the notice-and-action procedures that can be applied to illegal content available online, the authors noted that these still vary considerably from country to country, as they have not been fully harmonised at EU level. How do I stop software piracy? This is an important question, and the answer is complicated. Copyright.
This unique comparative legal analysis, published by the Observatory in collaboration with Giovanni Maria Riccio, an international copyright expert with the assistance of Fabiola Iraci, first examines the scope of the protection of audiovisual sports content within the legal framework of the 27 EU Member States and the United Kingdom. What are the rights attached to audiovisual sports content? Who has these rights? These are all relevant questions for understanding who will be entitled to take legal action against online piracy of audiovisual sports content, on what legal basis and what types of remedies are available to them. The European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) regularly conducts studies to determine how piracy rates change over time.