The Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA) welcomes the adoption of the DSA by the European Parliament. Resulting from the co-legislators’ provisional agreements earlier this year, this vote confirms that policymakers are willing to better address illegal content online. However, the DSA cannot be the full and definitive answer to online piracy since it has missed the opportunity to clarify important elements including:
• Stronger subsidiarity provisions
which would have been necessary to ensure that hosting providers do not have the opportunity to escape their obligations. The AAPA is concerned that the DSA does not guarantee that notified content will ultimately be removed or its access disabled, since hosting services will have no incentive to expeditiously remove or disable access to illegal content. This situation is extremely harmful for the entire audiovisual value chain and will leave the door open for audiovisual piracy to spread even more in the European Union.
• Extended Know Your Business Customer” (KYBC) obligations to all online intermediaries
which would have been an effective means to fight audiovisual piracy by allowing the collection of data and the verification of the identity of professional clients of all intermediaries.
Despite these missed opportunities, the AAPA notes that the DSA includes positive elements which will contribute effectively to the fight against audiovisual piracy:
• The extension of the trusted flaggers status to private entities, is very welcome from the AAPA perspective.
This provision will now allow rightsholders and technical providers who have a strong expertise and direct legal interest in flagging illegal content to be recognized as trusted flaggers, continuing a practice which exists now.
• The final provisions introduced in the notice and action mechanism
which provides that actual knowledge of illegal content is triggered when the content is notified and specifies that hosting services will remove such content without carrying out a detailed legal examination is also a key provision that is fully supported by the AAPA.
The AAPA will remain attentive to ensure that the DSA’s implementation lives up to its promise of better addressing illegal content online and will remain vigilant to ensure that the European Commission’s complementary initiative on the piracy of live audiovisual content will provide a specific regulatory framework for this type of content, that our sector has been advocating for.
About AAPA
The Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA) represents 28 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 is geographically diverse with companies from Europe, the Middle East, and America, and 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. Members are facing a concerning growth in volume of unauthorised use of protected audiovisual content. Within AAPA, they coordinate intelligence and action through effective dialogue and interaction with other stakeholders and law enforcement.