Priorities in the fight against piracy in 2022

Addressing piracy is a huge challenge, but AAPA members are committed and focused on addressing it as a team with our government and law enforcement partners.

The priorities set out in this series show how AAPA and law enforcement intend to tackle this global crime. We are sure we will see tangible proof of the implementation of these priorities via meaningful piracy enforcement actions in 2022.

Sheila Cassells, Mark Mulready & Oliver Pribramsky

Executive Vice President and Co-Presidents

Criminals that infringe intellectual property rights took advantage of the consumer shift to online marketplaces during the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing their activities such as pharmaceutical crime, counterfeit goods and copyright piracy.

INTERPOL has worked closely with our partners and member countries throughout the pandemic and we look forward to increasing this cooperation in 2022 to protect individuals and businesses worldwide.

Rory Corcoran

INTERPOL Illicit Markets Assist Director

Social media channels are fast becoming a hot bed for streaming pirates. As content owners and technology companies have increased their anti-piracy initiatives and activities, pirates have been exploiting these new platforms and found new ways to conceal their illegal activities.

In order to deal with this spiralling piracy threat, it’s vital that we work closely with social media companies to persuade them to use new technologies to detect, disrupt and deter pirates and to have efficient and effective take-down and stay down procedures. Intelligence and collaboration are key. AAPA’s Social Media Working Group aims to stay one step ahead with an intelligence led approach, combining the latest technology solutions and round the clock monitoring to gather the evidence needed to orchestrate technical and legal take-downs.

Avigail Gutman

VP of Intelligence and Security Operations, Synamedia

Eurojust is the essential link between national authorities and other EU Agencies to ensure efficient cross-border judicial cooperation, in order to get justice done in a world where organised crime is operating more and more on a global scale. My priority as manager of the Intellectual Property Crime Project and Liaison Officer from Eurojust to Europol is to support the operational cooperation of the agencies and to help the ongoing cross-border serious and organised crime cases end with a successful prosecution.

Eurojust is strongly committed to strengthening the fight against intellectual property crime by adding the judicial element to the coordinated joint actions and operations executed within the European Union and with associated third countries.

Gábor Ivanics

Liaison Officer to Europol

The world of OTT services has seen considerable growth and has a dynamic ecosystem. The intermediaries supporting OTT services continue to grow, seeing new startups popping up offering a wide variety for consumers. As the consumer demand for access to content grows, the support services needed to deliver will grow with it. Unfortunately, where there is growth there is abuse and those that seek to test the complexities of current and future legislation. One segment of this ecosystem is Digital Service Providers (DSP), providing Hosting and CDN infrastructure. Across DSPs piracy can be commonplace, and the ability or willingness to take down pirated content is weak. In 2022, AAPA’s Hosting Providers Working group will keep under review DSPs to identify bad actors. We will try to work with them to improve their understanding of piracy and their responsiveness to requests for illegal content to be removed.

Lee Kent

Content Protection Manager | beIN

Innovation and Intellectual Property Protection are oftentimes being put at contention with one another and there is no need for that. They are complementary. Many will come to realize this in 2022. Like AAPA, Wiley supports new digital distribution models, but we also support the protection of valuable knowledge for new generations

Pascal Hetzscholdt

Senior Director Content Protection | Wiley

During 2022, AAPA will continue to work tirelessly with Law Enforcement Agencies around the world to address audiovisual piracy, which continues to proliferate as the largest threat to the viability of our industry.

We are heartened by the establishment of INTERPOL’s Digital Piracy Unit and Project I-SOP and AAPA plans to be a key partner in helping INTERPOL deliver key anti-piracy operational and educational outcomes. We are also grateful for the support of the EUIPO in re-establishing IP Crime as an EMPACT priority and look forward to continuing to support EUROPOL and the Bulgarian Police under the EMPACT operational action plan with training and support for anti-piracy operations.

Mark Mulready

Co-President

In the sector “Illegal content on the Internet” in the Cybercrime Department at the General Directorate Combating Organized Crime - Ministry of Interior in Bulgaria our priorities are to increase the total number of cases for crimes committed in connection with copyright and related rights. This will include disrupting the crime by continuing to remove hundreds of individual objects of copyright and related rights, illegally distributed via the Internet, every month.

To achieve our goals we will conduct joint operations and action days for the establishment and termination of Internet sites which are sharing and distributing copyrighted copyrights and related rights. Essential to this is building and maintaining connections with law enforcement agencies in other countries, both inside and outside the EU, and carrying out trainings and participating in such in order to improve the knowledge and skills of a wide range of institutions involved in the fight against piracy - police, prosecutors, courts, and others.

Aleksander Velev

Inspector | Cybercrime Department, General Directorate Combating Organized Crime - Ministry of Interior, Bulgaria

As 2021 comes to a close we can reflect on the challenges faced this year by law enforcement and other stakeholders in fighting piracy and applaud their many successes. In this series of postcards we and colleagues from law enforcement set out our priorities for 2022.

For AAPA reinforced collaboration with law enforcement agencies such as Europol, Eurojust and INTERPOL will be a feature. The important work being done in the AAPA Working Groups will become more focussed and will intensify in 2022. One particular issue which continues to cause concern – and over which the debates are likely to continue to rage – is the evolution of the DSA. AAPA will continue to argue for better protections for IP rights holders and will work with other stakeholders to try to achieve this.

Sheila Cassells

Executive Vice President