The Spanish cultural sector demands a reinforced fight against piracy in live content

The Coalition of Content Creators and Industries, an association that represents a wide selection of Spanish audiovisual rights managers, has requested the European Commission drastic measures against first-impact piracy, covering time-sensitive content such as premieres or live shows.

Coinciding with the World Day against Counterfeiting and Piracy, an initiative promoted by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and other international organizations celebrated on Sunday, June 8, the Coalition of Content Creators and Industries has expressed to the European Commission your positioning by requesting that you go further and expand the radius of action of your Commission Recommendation (EU) 2023/1018 of 4 May 2023 on combating online piracy of sports and other live events. This 2023 recommendation focuses on unauthorized broadcasts of live sporting or cultural events.

For The Coalition, the recommendation should be updated to be “more ambitious”; on the one hand, it is “essential” to cover a broader concept of sensitive content time, and, on the other hand, you must collect more concrete and effective measures within the EU to prevent the illegal dissemination of this type of content protected by intellectual property, which is causing the “spoliation” of the content of the cultural industry and sporting events. To do this, the association points to the data from the Piracy Observatory of 2023, which showed that the value of what was defrauded (5,079 million illicit content) had experienced a notable increase of 5% (7 points in two years) to reach 33,957 million euros.

For cultural creators and industries, comments the general director of The Coalition, Carlota Navarrete, referring to the content of the letter sent to the Commission, "it is necessary that any future development of the 2023 Recommendation includes live content and also all those that present a comparable temporal sensitivity, such as the ephemeral content of the daily press, launches and premieres in the first hours or days (of a song, movie, book, new season of a series or new...). When we talk about piracy we do so extraordinarily harmful infringing activities for the cultural sector, the creators and the holders of these rights, but also for the entire digital ecosystem of platforms, operators, etc., and, without a doubt, employment, the economy and the public coffers.”

The Coalition has also highlighted the involvement of the Spanish Ministry of Culture in the fight against piracy, thanking him for having taken “an active and forceful part” in the Commission's consultation, making visible the importance of this crucial matter for the Spanish cultural sector.