The Canal+ group has won its case with the French courts and many pirate sites broadcasting sports matches will be blocked worldwide.
A new battle has just ended in the war between rights holders and streaming sites broadcasting sports matches illegally. The latter will paradoxically be collateral victims since the “defeated” are in reality Google, Cisco And Cloudflare. To understand, you have to go back a few years. Canal+holder of the rights to Top 14 rugbyof the Champions League and some Premier League football, obtains following a court decision that French Internet service providers block many pirate sites.
Orange, Free, SFR and Bouygues Telecom comply, but Internet users immediately find a solution: just change the DNS on your device, which takes a few minutes. And among the public DNS most used for this, we find those of Google, Cisco and Clouflare. In France, 55% of pirate streaming consumers aged 25-34 use one of three. Logically, Canal+ takes the 3 companies to court, asking them to block it too.
Canal+ forces Google, Cisco and Cloudflare to block pirate sites
Demanding action on public DNS may seem surprising, but the complainant relies on article 333-10 paragraph 1 of the Sports Code, which is particularly broad: “When serious and repeated violations of the audiovisual exploitation right have been noted, […] the holder of this right may refer the matter to the president of the judicial court […]for the purposes of obtaining all proportionate measures likely to prevent or put an end to this infringement, against any person likely to contribute to remedying it“.
The arguments of the 3 firms all fell on deaf ears and the judges ruled in favor of Canal+. Consequently, 117 sites will be blocked, namely 66 which broadcast the Premier League and 51 which transmit the Champions League. A decision regarding the Top 14 rugby is expected in the coming weeks.
Even if Google responds to take note of the decision, specifying that it will comply with itthe company’s lawyer demonstrated that the impact of the measure will be extremely low. He concludes that it will affect around 800 people in France. The Regulatory Authority for Audiovisual and Digital Communication (Arcom) does not agree. While waiting to find out who is right, Canal+ has once again sued Google, Cisco and Cloudflare, this time to protect Formula 1.
Source: L’Informed
