Committee on Legal Affairs Ordinary Meeting
Legend
Transcript markers
- text Sentence being played
- text Search result
- text Intervention cited by the link you opened
Click a sentence to play the video from that moment. Select text to quote it with the speaker, timestamp and link.
More options
Offset
Transcript offset
Export
Replay
Versions of this video
Transcripts may differ slightly from one version to another.
JURI European Parliament
Follow its sittingsGiovanni Riccio
So just trying to consider the different positions of the copyright holders on the one side, of the internet operators on the other side, of consumers association also. So go back, getting back to the EU legal framework, we have four main regulations. The first one is the InfoSoc Directive and notably Article 3 of the InfoSoc Directive that as all of you know, held the right to the right owners to the communication to the public. And it's a right which is granted to authors, performers, film producers and broadcasters.
Of course, we are speaking about a directive which is very old also in the technological scenario, so it's from another age and also which is mainly devoted to static contents. On the other side, we have the IPRED and in this case the IPRED is a good basis and is still a good basis for injunctions, but in and it is underlined into the into the study what we have noticed is the fact that in many cases we had dishomogeneous responses from the from the national courts as well as to the national member states. More recently, of course, there is the Digital Services Act. This is a regulation and not a directive. The point is that it's a kind of general regulation in the sense that it is not specifically devoted to copyright infringement but in general to all the illicit contents which are spread via internet.
The positive aspects, of course, is the fact that the DSA also changed the the scenario of the operators which are involved into this this regulation and this is very important in in my mind. As long as I do not have too much time, let's move immediately to the DSM directive, so the directive for in copyright in the single market, in the digital single market and notably to Article 17. Once again, this is not specifically related to the infringement of sports events and TV rights in sports events. There are three aspects that should be considered. The first one is the creation of a kind of new category which is that of online content sharing service providers.
The second one is the introduction of the trusted flaggers and finally there is probably the most important aspect which is that which is the fact that Article 17 makes reference to the the fact that ISPs and in general internet operators should act expeditiously in order to avoid and the all the infringements. Of course, I will come back on this aspect in in a while. Excuse me, may I ask you how many minutes I have?
Ilhan Kyuchyuk
Yeah, you have some time. Yeah, five minutes, a bit more, seven, eight. I can give you some extra time if you need.
So it's 15 minutes, 1-5. Okay, then.
Take your time, Professor. Take your time, okay?
Giovanni Riccio
Thank you so much. Okay, okay, okay. Thank you so much. So once again, we do not have specific rules for sports events and it also mainly lead to a kind of fragmentation among the single member states. As for the for the Commission recommendation, of course, the Commission followed the resolution of the EU Parliament of 2021 and it was also assessed more recently in 2025.
There are some limits in in case of this recommendation. First of all, of course, a recommendation is a non-binding legal instrument.
Secondly, there are no specific deadlines or specific tailored measures to intervene. So there is, and this is the third aspect which is strictly related to the previous one, which is that of the fragmentation in the sense that in the national solutions there are no clear rules and also in many cases there could be some transactional costs on both sides, so on the side once again of the copyright owners and on the other side on that of the of the of the internet operators. As for the national framework, of course, I do not have time enough to speak about the single countries, but I would just like to underline that as for the national... Ah, okay, sorry, sorry. No, because I cannot hear you as such, so even 20 centimeters is perfect.
Like this. Okay. I stay like this. You know Italians move a lot, so I will try not to do that. So I will try to stay like this.
So as for national frameworks, just consider that there are three main models. The first model is a model in which there is an administrative authority and after a judicial intervention. The second model is the opposite one, a judicial intervention and then an administrative authority intervention. And the third one is no administrative authorities at all and only a judicial intervention. I think that it is important to speak briefly about Italy because Italy introduced in 2024 the piracy shield.
According to piracy shield, right holders submit reports to the AGCOM, which is the communication, the Italian communications authority. The authority validates and converts these reports to blocking orders. These orders are transmitted to the ISPs and there is this expectation of 30 minutes, so 30 minutes to block this this content. Also another aspect which is interesting in as for Italy in the case law is the fact that orders are extending to attempts of circumventing and are also involving new operators, so not only the, let me say, traditional ISPs but also other operators. The opposite solution is that of of France because in in in France you have a judicial intervention and so a blocking order which is issued by a judge.
And then there is this kind of institutional bridge in the sense that there is the intervention of an administrative authority which is the Arcom and it should make effective also that the injunctions work in case of changing of of websites and notably of DNS, of IP and and so on. The other aspects which are interesting in France is the involvement of users, which is not a new issue to be honest in France, we experienced many years ago with the Hadopi regulation and also the creation of blacklists. Moving fastly to the other countries, we have Spain with the a kind of multi-track system where I think that is the most important aspect in in my analysis is that of the intervention of the Sección Segunda, so once again an administrative intervention. And it is important because it's the country which mainly focused on also hitting payment systems and advertising systems.
As for the courts, they in general prefer the dynamic injunctions. Germany has no administrative authority. The the courts in general rely on the Störerhaftung theory, I hope that I pronounced it correctly. So an involvement of operators as far as they contribute into the infringement and also in the German legal system have been applied some criminal sanctions to to operators, so in general to non-direct infringers. Netherlands, once again no administrative authorities.
I think that as for Netherlands, the most remarking aspect is that of the Ecatel case because Ecatel case provides for a blocking, for a temporary blocking which is of 30 minutes. So once again we have these 30 minutes which which return. Also Belgium, in in Belgium we have noticed a wide use of dynamic injunction. And also the possibility of a prevention preventive, I'm sorry, intervention if the infringement is imminent. Another aspect which is interesting of the Belgian legal system is that of the intervention of the Ministry of Economy and notably of the service for fighting online piracy because this this entity may up may update technical measures to be implemented as well as real-time updates of the list of the website of the infringing websites.
Let's move as we do not have too much time. Let's move to the key trends. In general, I might say that we have three major trends. The first one is the expansion of intermediary perimeter. I already made reference to this in the sense that the enforcement has moved from the ISPs to proxy service, to public the DNS resolvers and also and very importantly to VPN providers.
The second trend is also already mentioned is that of the wide use of dynamic injunction in many courts in many member states. Finally, the third trend is that of temporal alignment with live events and so in general the enforcement is linked to competition calendars and this is what has been ordered in some cases by the courts, in some others also by the administrative authorities. Unfortunately, we there is still a persistent fragmentation in the sense that first of all it is unclear which is the decisor in the sense that as as said in some countries is the are the courts, in some other countries are administrative bodies. Also there is a problem in considering the speed and so you know how difficult it can be for both once again the copyright holders and also the internet operators. There is another aspect which is very important which is that of the VPN which have been targeted and this is a new thing from 2021 to up to now.
Also once again in some countries there are specific administrative bodies, in some others there are no administrative bodies. And finally the scope which is also beyond sport, so to the all the live events. I go fastly to the conclusions.
As for the conclusions, as already said, we have first of all this persistence of this fragmentation in Europe. So many interesting solutions, but still different solutions. We also have this use of dynamic blocking injunctions, which could not be the best solution. So in this case, of course, there is this kind of dichotomy between dynamic injunctions on the one side and notice and take down procedures on the other side. I think that they are not alternative necessarily.
Also the scope, which is expanded, as already said, which moved from the well-known ISPs to CDN, DNS, VPN providers and so on. And finally, the open question regarding the recommendation, because to be honest, I think that a non-binding solution is not the best solution if we want to reinforce the single market. Final recommendations, they are very low, so I hope that you can see. It's also a test for your opticians. So on the one side, there is once again the great problem is that of the binding harmonization.
So in my opinion, we cannot rely on a recommendation, but we should consider if we have to follow the traditional legislative strategy in copyright, so just drafting a directive or if maybe a regulation would be better. The second aspect is that of expanding the intermediaries, but I already spoke about this. The third aspect is that of creating a specific right for sports events, but probably I would rather say for live events, because the great difference is from static contents on the one side and dynamic contents and live contents on the other side. Also we should consider to monitoring the data that we have, as said, in the last five years. I think that the scenario dramatically changed.
So we must be aware about the changes that probably there will be in the next years. And at the same time, also promoting the legal offer. I've been surprised by the fact that in some cases users are unaware of the fact that they are exploiting non-legal contents. Finally, the last point is that of the live tailored enforcement tools, in the sense that once again, and this is probably the most challenging aspect, do we need to rely on dynamic injunctions as suggested by many courts in several member states or probably notice and take down procedures and so the removal of the content is a better solution.
So I think that it's over and thanks a lot for your attention.
Ilhan Kyuchyuk
Thank you Professor Riccio for your enriching presentation. And now I open the floor for the members, starting with Axel Voss.
Axel Voss
Vielen Dank. Vielen Dank auch für die... Ach so, ich spreche in Deutsch, ja. Vielen Dank für die Vorstellung der Studie. Ist hochinteressant und spannend, das alles so mitzubekommen.
Ich frage mich natürlich, die Kommission hatte ja schon mal von sich gegeben, dass man für diese Art von Live-Events eigentlich gar keine weitere Gesetzgebung mehr braucht. Nur was benötigen wir denn dann? Also dass das ein Zustand ist, den wir alle nicht haben wollen, ist ziemlich klar. Nur es ist eben auch klar, es ist eigentlich ein Wettrennen, der hier passiert. Notice and Action ist über Artikel 16 DSA scheint mir absolut nicht ausreichend und nicht erfolgsversprechend zu sein.
Deshalb ist eben die Frage, was können wir anderes tun? Meines Erachtens kommt hier sehr viel Technik eigentlich oder auch Technologie mit rein. Aber jetzt für uns auch die Frage, sollen wir Provider mehr in die Verantwortung nehmen, wenn sie sich weigern bei Live-Blocking-Orders entsprechend mitzuwirken? Oder ich frage mich dann eben immer, wenn 80 % der Nutzer über VPN-Kanäle kommen, bringen dann Domainsperren überhaupt etwas? Das ist etwas, was ich nicht entsprechend weiß.
Aber das sind so Fragen, wie können wir eigentlich hier viel effektiver sein, nicht nur was Rechtsprechung was Gesetzgebung betrifft, sondern auch vielleicht unter der Umsetzung der Durchsetzung solcher Maßnahmen, um entweder IP-Blocking, Domain-Blocking intensiver zu beschreiben, das abzusichern, Haftung, auch VPN-Provider vielleicht in Haftung zu nehmen, um hier ein deutliches Zeichen zu setzen. Vielen Dank.
Maravillas Abadía Jover
I will speak Spanish. Gracias presidente y muchas gracias profesor Riccio por la presentación de este estudio. Sabemos que la piratería online de deportes y otros eventos en vivo ya no es algo ocasional, sino un sofisticado modelo de negocio que mueve miles de millones de euros en la Unión Europea. Esta comisión tuvo ocasión de comprobar en su misión a Madrid, y usted lo analiza en su estudio, que el caso de España, por ejemplo, cuenta con un sistema articulado en las vías civil, penal y administrativa. En su opinión, ¿este modelo multicapa es un ejemplo de buena práctica que podría inspirar a otros Estados miembros mientras no tengamos una normativa armonizada en la Unión Europea, o cree que la complejidad del sistema podría acabar generando problemas de eficacia en su aplicación real?
Y en segundo lugar, y mirando a futuro y a nivel de la Unión Europea, y teniendo en cuenta la rapidez con la que evolucionan los modelos de piratería en directo, ¿cree que deberíamos poner el foco en reforzar aún más los mecanismos existentes de actuación o más bien en ampliar la responsabilidad de los distintos intermediarios? Y finalmente, habla de la posibilidad de un reglamento que ataje este problema. En su opinión, ¿cuáles deberían ser las tres claves principales de esta propuesta normativa?
Gracias.
Dainius Žalimas
Thank you very much. Thank you, dear professor, for excellent presentation. Online piracy of live events is highly cross-border and often requires rapid reactions while event is still taking place. Dynamic injunctions have proven effective in some member states, but their availability and practical application remain quite uneven across the whole European Union. In your view, what are the main obstacles to a wider use of dynamic injunctions across the EU?
Would greater progress come from improved cooperation between rights holders, platforms and national authorities, or is there a need for legislative action at the EU level? If legislative changes were to be considered, would the priority be to revisit the Enforcement Directive, the Digital Services Act or any other instrument? Equally, tackling piracy cannot rely on enforcement alone. Many consumers continue to point to issues of affordability, the tendency to put all live sports behind a paywall and fragmentation of services into different ecosystems. In your view, how can rights holders, platforms and policy makers work together to make legitimate content more attractive and accessible to consumers?
Thank you.
Arash Saeidi
Merci, Monsieur le Président. J'allais justement intervenir sur la dernière partie de l'intervention de mon collègue. Donc je ne vais pas répéter, mais effectivement, puisque je rejoins les aspects législatifs et tout, je ne dénie pas du tout, mais vous avez posé les questions, vous avez fait le rapport, il est très pertinent. Mais est-ce qu'on n'aurait pas également intérêt, comme l'a évoqué Dainius, à explorer la piste aussi de pourquoi le piratage a explosé à ce point ? Est-ce que la fragmentation de l'offre, les coûts qui deviennent...
Si vous êtes aujourd'hui un fan de foot ou de basket ou de hockey sur glace, ou malheureusement des trois en même temps, et que vous n'êtes pas député européen, je ne sais pas comment vous faites pour regarder tout sans tricher. Il se trouve que si vous êtes député européen ou un niveau de revenu équivalent, vous avez la flemme de chercher des VPN ou que le risque de vous faire attraper est supérieur au coût. Mais je me mets à la place des citoyens lambda, ne serait-ce que pour suivre un championnat et une Coupe d'Europe, vous devez parfois avoir deux, trois, quatre abonnements à des tarifs... Je fais exprès de prendre un exemple qui fait réagir, mais je prends des exemples qui touchent parce que les gens qui triche, ce n'est pas la grande... Enfin, ceux qui mettent à disposition, oui, mais les citoyens qui trichent, ce n'est pas de la grande criminalité, c'est juste des gens qui ont envie de suivre un événement sportif qu'ils aiment à un coût raisonnable.
Et s'ils avaient accès à des coûts raisonnables, je pense que 99 % de nos concitoyens n'iraient pas se compliquer la vie à avoir des VPN, à avoir des diffusions qui coupent, de mauvaise qualité, etc. Mais c'est peut-être aussi la fragmentation de l'offre et les coûts prohibitifs qui poussent les gens à faire perdurer ce marché noir.
Ilhan Kyuchyuk
Merci, Monsieur Saïdi. Professor Ricci, that was it from the members' side. You have another, I would say, 12 to 15 minutes to answer the questions.
Giovanni Riccio
Okay. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you a lot for these questions, which are not easy. I will start from the end, and I totally agree that most citizens don't want a poor quality. So, I mean, sorry for this biographical remark, but I start working on the relation between law and technology almost 30 years ago.
And of course, there was this huge hype already regarding piracy. And what we have noticed is that during the years, the general consumers moved to a legal offer where the legal offer was efficient. So I think that people are paying for online services. People are paying to watch movies legally, to listen to music legally. And so once again, I think that the quality is a good starting point.
That's for general. The second aspect, and this is still a general remark, is regarding liability. And I think that we should not consider the only liabilities because once again, what we have noticed in this sector is, for instance, in Spain with some operators, is that they have received many condemnations by the courts and they never paid. So I mean, at least civil liability is totally inefficient. And I think that also from the side of stakeholders, you know, suing someone, going to a court, waiting for a decision which should take years, it's not the right solution.
So I would just move to the first question regarding, on the one side, the possibility of using the DSA as a kind of example for a new legislation. And my opinion is that also in general, the European legislation is moving from a directive-centric regulation to a regulation-centric regulations, I do apologize for the joke of words. But the point is that probably also in terms of harmonization of the rules, a regulation would be much better in this sector because if we leave too much space to the member states, the problem is still the same. We should have different solutions and all the operators from all the sides, because I think that we should also consider the costs, which are once again a starting point. So if we consider the costs, we should also consider the transactional costs.
So having, for example, a lawyer in each single country which just show you which is the right procedure to be followed and so on. So probably this should be an issue.
So yes, I do agree. I think that Digital Services Act may be a good a good example. And still on the first question, the refuse to implement in in the case of the use of VPNs, let let me say something that I haven't mentioned during the presentation. We should also consider that there could be some differences between the European and non-European operators. And in some cases, non-EU operators tend to refuse the application of these orders.
So I think that this is obvious, but let me say that the rules should be the same for all the operators regardless of where they are located, so where is their place of establishment. How can we be more effective in terms of legislation? As I said, probably, but let me say this is just my personal opinion, so please take this as as an opinion of a professor of law and so just a single person. And my individual position is that probably a regulation would be better than a directive. We probably should pay attention to the don't rely on a over-technicalities in the sense that probably the technical solution should not enter into this regulation as because what we can see easily is that they change from from one year to another.
So probably it should be ineffective. And this is also the story of piracy. When the first court orders were issued, they were just related, for example, to a specific DNS and so changing the DNS, the court order was ineffective. So we have to pay attention. So not I don't I would not suggest an over-technical regulation.
Of course, I think that that when when I said we should consider notice and takedown procedures, dynamic injunctions or in general injunctions, I think that this is not a technical remark. This is just a way of intervention from a legislative point of view. What I'm saying is that probably we should avoid the hyper-technicality in the in the legislation. As for the second questions, you started from the billions of euros which are lost into this sector. And this is, as I said, a great starting point because we should be aware that piracy is not something which is made, you know, by a poor students in a poor house.
They are companies, illicit companies, it's criminality and we should be very aware about this this aspect. Again, as for dynamic injunction and this is the the the third question, once again, I think that I mean in a potential regulation we should take into account also the injunctions. So I want to underline that when I speak about notice and takedown on the one side and injunctions on the other side, they are not alternative. They can be also cumulative. So I think that in many cases injunctions worked in this sector, but probably they are not enough and they can be easily circumvented.
And also again, the example of DSA should show us this, that probably a notice and takedown system, a specific notice and takedown system with the specific subjects which are entitled to make this notification would be preferable.
Also it has been mentioned the aspect of policy makers and the right holders what they can do more. Well, I mean probably is not an answer for a professor of law, I don't know. But if you want to know once again my opinion, my opinion is again that we have relied too much on this narrative of piracy of the kind of destruction of the world. What we have seen in the last decades was just that improving the services led to a reduction of piracy. So I think that if you have efficient services once again, I mean nobody wants to see an interruption in a football match.
So I'm a great football supporter, so I can be mad if there is an interruption into a match. So I think that once again we should change the legislation. This is my final remark, trying to take a common sense in all the question. So I think that we should change the legislation. I think that we need a binding legislative intervention.
I think that probably regulation would be better than a directive. And I also think that we should give space to notice and take down procedures and not only to blocking injunctions. So these are my key points and I hope that I replied to all the interventions and thanks a lot again for your attention.
Ilhan Kyuchyuk
Thank you so much Professor Riccio and also thank you particularly for making so clear your concluding remarks. I'm sure your study will nourish the work of this committee and yeah, thank you and let's stay in touch for the future developments.
Arash Saeidi
Si le professeur peut glisser une suggestion sur l'interdiction des pauses fraîcheur dans son rapport, je l'applaudirais des deux mains.
Arash Saeidi
Si vous pouviez glisser une suggestion sur puisque vous aimez le foot, sur l'interdiction des pauses fraîcheur dans votre rapport, on vous appuiera de toutes nos forces.
Speaker 24
Yes, I'm Italian so you know I'm not very interested at the moment in the championship, so good luck to all of you.
Ilhan Kyuchyuk
Okay, good. Next item is amending regulation 2019/1753 as regards amendments adopted by the Assembly of the Lisbon Union on 14th of July 2025 to the common regulation under the Lisbon Agreement on Appellations of Origin and Geographical Indications and the rapporteur is Dainius Žalimas. I give you the floor Mr. Rapporteur.
Dainius Žalimas
Thank you, thank you Chair. So dear colleagues, let me start with a brief explanation what is this file about. The World Intellectual Property Organization or WIPO manages international systems for the protection of intellectual property rights. One of these systems is the Lisbon system which allows geographical indications, names such as protected regional products, to obtain international protection.
The legal basis for this system is the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement for the protection of appellations of origin and their international registration. The EU joined this agreement in 2019 and as a contracting party, we have committed ourselves to applying its rules. We have also adopted regulation in 2019, which established the procedures that the Commission and the EU Intellectual Property Office must follow when registering and managing EU geographical indications. In July of the last year, 2025, WIPO adopted amendments to its procedural rules, known as the common regulations. These amendments will enter into force on the 1st of July this year, that is in a few weeks.
As a result, the EU now needs to adapt its own legislation so that our procedures remain aligned with the international rules. This is therefore a technical alignment exercise. The Commission adopted a proposal for that purpose and the Council subsequently worked on several drafting improvements. During our discussion with the Commission representatives, they indicated their agreement to the Council's modifications. For that reason, the text I have tabled as rapporteur do not introduce new political elements.
We are essentially aligning Parliament with the Council compromise so that the EU is ready when the new WIPO rules start to apply. The only addition on our side is the restoration of a few missing sentences already present in the previous regulation to ensure consistency. The amendment WIPO rules will allow new types of modifications to internationally registered geographical indications, including changes to their name, type of goods and product particulars. To reflect this in our report, we distinguish between two categories of modifications. The first group concerns substantial modifications that affect the core identity of a geographical indication, namely its name or the type of goods concerned.
To maintain consistency, the Commission or in some cases the office must request the corresponding modification in the international register once the modification has been approved in the EU system. The only exception is where the Member State of origin decides that it no longer wishes to maintain the international registration and requests cancellation. The second group concerns modifications that do not create such a discrepancy. This includes modifications relating to the geographical area or to the description of the product's quality, reputation or characteristics. In these cases, a modification of the international registration may be requested at the initiative of the Member State.
The proposal also addresses modifications notified by third countries. It ensures that the Union can reassess protection where significant changes are made to the name or type of goods concerned. For more limited modifications or corrections, a review is not automatic, but it can still be initiated at the request of a Member State, the Commission's or the office' own initiative.
In short, this is a technical and timely file. It ensures that EU procedures remain coherent with the updated WIPO framework and enables our producers to benefit from the new procedural possibilities introduced at international level. I therefore invite you, dear colleagues, to support the report in its current form to ensure its swift adoption. Thank you.
Ilhan Kyuchyuk
Thank you, and I go to the shadows, and first is Marion Walsmann. Marion.
Marion Walsmann
Liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen, vielen Dank an den Kollegen Dzhalimaz für seinen Berichtsentwurf und seine Erklärung. Das Dossier ist tatsächlich nicht kontrovers, da die Anpassungen lediglich technischer Natur sind. Da die Änderungen der Akte bereits kommende Woche in Kraft treten, ist zudem eine gewisse Eile geboten. Und vor diesem Hintergrund wären wir daher bereit, die vorgeschlagenen, vor allem technischen beziehungsweise linguistischen Änderungen des Rates sowie des Berichterstatters größtenteils auch mitzutragen. Insofern haben wir da diesen Weg gemeinsam.
Danke.
Ilhan Kyuchyuk
Thank you, Marion Walsmann. We understood that the Commission would like to take the floor, and we have Mr. Luca Cianfoni, senior expert, DG AGRI, Unit F3, Geographical Indications, and the floor is yours.
Luca Cianfoni
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for giving the floor. I have really nothing to add in practice, in substance, because the rapporteur has summarized perfectly the nature and the content of the proposal of the Commission and the aim and the objective of this procedure. So we can say just that as a Commission, we are, we consider very positive that the rapporteur of the European Parliament has followed the approach of the Council, and we wish that the opinion of the Parliament may be adopted as soon as possible so we can start the trilogues. Thank you very much.
Speaker 21
Thank you. Mr. Dzhalimaz, would you like to have the floor back as rapporteur? You have the right.
Ilhan Kyuchyuk
Thank you. That was it, dear colleagues. Yes, just a reminder, always good to have the secretariat next to you, the deadline for amendments is tomorrow, 23rd of June, at 5 o'clock, and they will be tabled only in English. I'm sorry for that inconvenience. Okay, with that, I would like to thank you for today and see you tomorrow at 11 o'clock.
Ask anything about this video — I analyse its transcript to answer.