Live Content Coalition call for legislative action at EU level on notice and takedown of live pirated content
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Since our formation in 2021, the Live Content Coalition has consistently called for urgent legislative action to address the issue of online piracy of live events in Europe by rectifying the limits of the notice and takedown regime. We therefore welcome the European Commission’s call for evidence on a ‘Targeted initiative for a better copyright environment for European creativity and innovation’ as an important first step towards meaningful regulatory change.
In the evaluation of its 2023 Recommendation on combating online piracy of sports and other live events, published in November 2025, the Commission clearly acknowledged that the non-legislative approach it had taken did not have the necessary nor desired effect of reducing the levels of online live content piracy. Indeed, the evaluation concludes that “given its non-binding nature”, the effects of the Recommendation “have been limited and have not allowed to significantly curb the volume of online piracy of live events”.
It is clear to the European Commission, as it is to us, that further concrete action is needed. But it is imperative that the action taken is the right one. Live content is specific as its economic value is intrinsically linked to real-time consumption and unauthorised content needs to be taken down immediately after it has been notified, not after hours or days. This means presenting a legislative proposal to define the meaning of ‘expeditious removal’ with regards the responsibilities of hosting providers upon the receipt of a notice of illegal content on their services. For too long the ambiguity of the language within Article 6 of the Digital Services Act (DSA) has shielded uncooperative actors and prevented rightsholders from effectively enforcing our rights.
A typical example is cited in the evaluation report: “one broadcaster reported that, in some instances, more than 3,000 illicit streams, disseminated on hundreds of live streaming websites, can be detected for a single sport event. Out of the over one million notices sent to hosting providers by that broadcaster, only 1.4% of the streams notified were removed during the event.” This example demonstrates that enforcement is effectively impossible within the current EU legal framework. To provide some context of the extent of the issue, during the period of evaluation of the Commission’s Recommendation (January 2025-June 2025), a group of 10 rightsholders sent 26.2 million notices to intermediaries. Of these, only 8% resulted in suspension during the live event[1].
While injunctions provided for under the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED) are a pivotal part of our enforcement toolkit as rightsholders, they only serve to hide illegally uploaded content rather than removing it or preventing its reappearance, as notice and takedown measures do. A fast and efficient notice and takedown regime is therefore fundamental to prevent the proliferation of infringing live content online.
We therefore once again urge the European Commission to present a legislative proposal without delay, defining ‘expeditious removal’ for live content and fixing the visible hole in the DSA.
This will enable us to fight back against this scourge on our sector and will no longer allow open theft of our intellectual property to propagate in the European Union.
About the Live Content Coalition
The Live Content Coalition is a group of representatives of leading European live content producers, broadcasters, and exhibitors. As representatives of live events, including sports, music concerts and festivals, broadcast television and video on demand services, and tickets sellers, we are all united in the fight to stop piracy.
Contact email: secretariat@livecontentcoalition.eu
For more information from LCC members, please contact:
Miruna Herovanu, Executive Director, Audiovisual Antipiracy Alliance – miruna@aapa.eu
Grégoire Polad, Director General, Association of Commercial Television and Video on Demand Services in Europe – gp@acte.be
Victoria Matthews, Executive Officer, European Arenas – victoria@europeanarenas.com
Anita Debaere, Director, Pearle* Live Performance Europe – anita@pearle.eu
Mark Lichtenhein, Chairman, Sports Rights Owners Coalition – markl@europe.com
Johannes Studinger, Head, Uni Mei – johannes.studinger@uniglobalunion.org
[1] Two Years On: Online Piracy Trends Worsen Despite the European Commission’s Recommendation, Grant Thornton – September 2025