ISP Blocking: How Effective Is It?
In our last article we looked at The Pirate Bay, a site that does not seem to have lost any of its popularity despite various court orders and blocking by ISPs (Internet Service Providers).
This example may suggest that blocking is not effective. But the reality, as is often the case, is more complex.
Research confirms the effectiveness of blocking
This study by Carnegie Mellon University shows that the method works to a certain extent. An average user will have much more trouble getting around blocked sites and will not necessarily want to make the effort, or the investment, needed to do so. They will prefer to pay for legal content. This allows rights holders to lose less revenue.
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For example, the blocking of 53 pirate sites in the United Kingdom in 2014 not only led to a significant drop in both site-specific and overall piracy, but also increased the use of legal subscription sites, such as Netflix, by 7 to 12%.
However, The Pirate Bay indexes, categorizes and provides a search function for torrent files (and so guides users through the peer-to-peer file-sharing network), and the vast majority of these torrents are copyright-protected content.
However, these data are old, and there is no real certainty about current figures, and therefore about the long-term effectiveness of this blocking.
Moreover, internet users are increasingly savvy, which suggests that blocking will also become easier and easier to get around.
Sporting events in the crosshairs
In recent years, it is mainly the broadcasters of live sporting events who feel hurt by piracy. Indeed, according to the newspaper l’Équipe, 24% of internet users in France visit sites offering pirated content. Excluding IPTV, regular pirates of sporting events would number more than 2.5 million, and the number of users of illegal IPTV is said to have doubled over the past three years.
In England, sports organizations such as The Premier League, Matchroom Boxing and Queensbury Promotions have obtained injunctions to block live sports broadcasts by unlicensed streaming providers, mainly IPTV services.
While the objectives of these injunctions are broadly similar, blocking pirated IPTV streams is a more complex matter, because the targeted servers and systems are less static than traditional websites. It is now known that this blocking would not have been possible without the active cooperation of the operator Sky, which provided data that made these operations possible.
In addition, UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) obtained an extension of the British High Court injunction requiring the main ISPs in the United Kingdom to block subscribers confirmed to be engaging in sports piracy. The operators concerned reportedly include Sky, Virgin and Vodafone.
Farewell HADOPI, long live Arcom
In France, a bill aimed at limiting audiovisual piracy was passed on September 29, 2021.
In addition to merging the CSA (Conseil Supérieur de l’Audiovisuel) and the government anti-piracy body HADOPI to form a new body, ARCOM (Autorité de régulation de la communication audiovisuelle et numérique), the law aims to better protect broadcasters of sporting events.
The new law makes it possible to act through summary proceedings (référé) to request the blocking of sites that harm the interests of rights holders. Summary proceedings are a form of accelerated legal action that should, in theory, allow pirate sites, and their mirror sites, to be blocked more quickly. Indeed, the blocking can be extended to any site that reproduces all or a substantial part of the targeted site.
In addition, the new body will be able to make public the listing on a blacklist of the names of sites “that have been the subject of a deliberation in which it was found that these services seriously and repeatedly infringed copyright or neighbouring rights.”
Finally, and this measure specifically targets sporting events, rights holders will be able to demand the blocking not only of streaming sites, but also of future sites not yet identified, using a form of dynamic injunction. Even so, many parliamentarians have already noted that the text did not go far enough. There is also the question of the resources that will be granted to the newly created body.
It is very clearly a step in the right direction, but not a revolution.
Is DNS blocking an innovative solution?
The future, however, may lie elsewhere — perhaps in DNS blocking. In June 2021, Sony won an important case in Germany that could require domain name system (DNS) service providers to block access to a website for copyright infringement on the internet.
Indeed, Sony Music succeeded in obtaining an injunction from the Hamburg court, requiring the Swiss DNS company Quad9 to block access to a pirate music site.
Do you have sporting events or products to protect? Don’t hesitate to contact us. Our team of experts has been working on these issues for more than ten years, and we have developed a set of tools that will let you regain control of your revenue and protect your creations and your events.
Join us for our next article: the influence of awards and ceremonies on film piracy.
