Blog: WHY COLLABORATION WITH INTERNATIONAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES IS KEY TO FIGHTING AUDIOVISUAL PIRACY

Why collaboration with international law enforcement agencies is key to fighting audiovisual piracy

Just like the internet, illegal streaming of audiovisual content has no geographical boundaries. Of course, a few countries may block internet signals but even pirates find a way to circumvent this. How do you tackle such an issue? A partnership approach to fighting online piracy is key. This requires all stakeholders to share information and work together and, as importantly if not more so, there must be a law enforcement response which maps the geography of the illegal crime networks.

The recent announcement by INTERPOL that the Korean Government is funding a 5-year project entitled STOP ONLINE PIRACY (I-SOP) is the first truly global response to the global phenomenon that is audiovisual piracy. As foreshadowed at the AAPA-INTERPOL webinar on international co-operation AAPA and the US IPR Center will partner INTERPOL in this very exciting and ground-breaking project. Here is why we place a great deal of emphasis on working with international law enforcement agencies.

Pirates operating globally

The perception that a pirate is someone working alone from their bedroom couldn’t be further from reality. Online piracy is undertaken by highly sophisticated organised crime networks, often spanning different countries, continents and jurisdictions, as the visual from the EUIPO Observatory shows.

Mock Case 8: IPTV Piracy Case. International Judicial Cooperation in Intellectual Property Cases – Study on Legislative Measures Related to Online IPR Infringements Phase 2 (EUIPO Observatory)

Convicting the pirates depends upon extensive investigation to facilitate intelligence sharing and, of course, the compilation of a sound evidential case. No one nation is in a position to gather that for a transnational piracy operation. Pirates do not work in geographical silos and law enforcement must not do the same. Collaboration is a must.

Law enforcement agencies such as INTERPOL, Eurojust, or Europol are best placed to coordinate multi-disciplinary, multi-national teams which can go beyond the online front offices of the pirates and shed light on the criminal organisations, the associated money flows and all the facilitators and enablers involved. Let’s take the action initiated by Sky Italia and coordinated by Eurojust and Europol as an example. This successful simultaneous disruption of pirate networks (known as BlackIPTV/XTream Codes) by authorities involved 19 different agencies from six countries and led to the dismantling of an international criminal network affecting over 50 million users worldwide. The damage caused by the criminal gang amounted to about €6.5million. More than 200 servers were taken offline in Germany, France and the Netherlands. This would not have been possible with the Italian Judicial Authority and Guardia de Finanza working alone.

In four major cross-border cases co-ordinated by Eurojust in 2020, more than 5,500 servers were taken down to stop online piracy. In the context of audiovisual piracy that fact that Eurojust’s network extends beyond the European Union to 55 other jurisdictions is significant. INTERPOL with its 194 member countries provides even greater global reach.

Engaging with international law enforcement

Over the past decade AAPA has built effective relationships with Europol, Eurojust, INTERPOL and the U.S. IPR Center. We have done this should be clear from the discussion above. But what have we done?

We have met with representatives of the agencies on a regular basis, talked about key and emerging issues, provided training, supplied materials for publications, and supported operations on request. To give some examples, AAPA offered training to Europol IPC3 officers at the very early stages of its establishment. This gave the officers greater confidence in their ability to co-ordinate operations – knowing also they had somewhere to turn if advice was required. More recently Europol and Eurojust organised joint training, provided by AAPA, for over 70 police office and prosecutors. We have run workshops in conjunction with police officers about operational cases at both the Europol and INTERPOL IP Crime conferences – bringing real operational challenges and opportunities to a wider audience.

At the request of Europol we provided on-the-ground operational support in two operations carried out by the Bulgarian cybercrime department. Five cable operators were illegally intercepting and distributing more than 60 premium TV channels (both foreign and Bulgarian), without the consent of the rights–holders. The financial damage is estimated to be more than 10 million Bulgarian leva (approximately €5 million). More than 700 000 subscribers received the illegal broadcasted signal from the criminal network. Unusually – but alarmingly – this operation led to protests on the street and demands for the removal of senior judicial officials!!

Another excellent example of working together was the April 2021 webinar, held by AAPA in partnership with INTERPOL, on International Collaboration In The Fight Against Piracy. Over 275 participants, including law enforcement representatives from 43 different countries, attended the webinar.

Our relationship with Europol is underpinned by a MOU. However, as with Eurojust and INTERPOL all these relationships are built on trust and recognition of the contribution which AAPA can make to their work. While obviously it is important to us that the international agencies are willing to pursue cases affecting AAPA members it also helps the fight against piracy generally for AAPA to make its members knowledge and expertise available more broadly. That’s also why we have made modules on audiovisual piracy available in 5 languages (English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Mandarin) on the International Intellectual Property Crime Investigators College (IIPCIC) platform.

Suggestions for improvement

Collaboration between law enforcement agencies and the private sector is a proven way to deliver the most effective results. As with any relationship, the more you work together, the greater the understanding. Collaboration is at the heart of building trust, which is the basis for effective teamwork. Although it’s worth saying that working collaboratively in the system doesn’t afford you any protection should your business practices fall within the piracy purview!

The steps required to obtain the evidence that the judicial system requires for a successful conviction can take time – often years, which allows pirate operations and their enablers to continue their illegal activities and increase their criminal profits. In many cases the private sector will have assembled an evidence pack which can be the starting gun for an international operation. It goes without saying that the private sector is keen that this should be in the hands of an international agency quickly, but the established procedures prohibit the direct submission of data to any of the agencies. Identifying and implementing improvements such as how data is supplied may allow us to bring pirates to justice quicker. Given that we know pirates constantly adapt, enabling a swift response from law enforcement could make a difference, prevent the financial damages from increasing while increasing the chance of criminals getting caught and preventing server and country ‘hopping’.

One more suggestion would be that the major international agencies – INTERPOL, Eurojust, Europol – go beyond the existing protocols for co-operation and work more closely together. Inter-agency competition has no place in the fight against IP crime! Successful co-operation happens for food and drinks fakes where INTERPOL and Europol have co-ordinated Operation Opson for a decade, seizing billions of dollars’ worth of potentially dangerous food and drinks. We also have Operation In our Sites (IOS) which covers piracy as well as other areas where Europol, Eurojust, INTERPOL and the IPR Centre have had great success in seizing websites and making the internet a safer place for consumers. However, this is only a small part of the piracy problem, and at AAPA, we sincerely hope that under the auspices of I-SOP we will see more tangible co-operation in the fight against piracy.

The bottom line is collaboration across all parties: law enforcement, the private sector and Government is essential. After all, the best way to fight online piracy is not to compete with each other but to work as a team.

Sheila Cassells
Executive Vice President

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