AAPA Recommendations to IMCO Committee Members in relation to the Digital Service Act (DSA) and the Fight against Audiovisual Piracy
AAPA Recommendations to IMCO Committee Members in relation to the Digital Service Act (DSA) and the Fight against Audiovisual Piracy
June 2021
Introduction
The Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA) represents companies involved in the provision of protected audiovisual services, security technology for protecting such services and the manufacturing of products which facilitate the delivery of these services.
Our membership includes the whole audiovisual value chain, such as rightsholders, platform operators, telecommunication companies, OTT providers, broadcasters and technical service providers. Many of our members are global businesses. Our aim is to tackle piracy, particularly pertaining to the development, promotion, distribution, application or use of technologies aimed at allowing illegal access to content.
As described in the Annex, audiovisual piracy involves severe damaging consequences for the entire audiovisual sector and even beyond. Indeed, the audiovisual sector remains one of the most impacted sectors for copyright infringements and piracy. The massive illicit consumption of audiovisual services concerns all types of content, ranging from sport competitions to films and TV series. What is more, audiovisual piracy has dramatically accelerated during the pandemic outbreak. The functioning and viability of the whole industry is impacted, leading to a considerable loss of revenue for the entire audiovisual value chain and prejudicing the sustainability of the creative ecosystem and, ultimately, cultural diversity.
Against this background, AAPA members ask for an urgent and strong response from the IMCO Committee to reinforce the fight against illegal audiovisual content online through the Digital Service Act (DSA).
AAPA Recommendations
More specifically, AAPA members call on IMCO members to:
- Clarify the definition of “hosting services” to ensure a more efficient fight against audiovisual piracy
The definition of “hosting service” should be expanded to include services that not only store information but also enable the allowance of storage of information, including services that consist in the provision of IP addresses allowing the anonymous use of domain names and websites. This would include in the scope of the definition, technical services that facilitate piracy by allowing illegal streaming site hosting solutions to be put in place. These include dedicated servers1, rental service providers, and reverse proxies2, where currently there is an uncertainty regarding the liability regime
1 “Dedicated servers” are hosting services in which a physical server is dedicated to a single business customer.
2 A “reverse proxy” is a common type of proxy server (i.e. a server application or appliance that acts as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from servers that provide those resources) that is accessible from the public
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