Arcom's notice of May 6, 2026 accompanying the publication of model agreements provided for in article L333-10 of the French Sports Code.

The French regulatory authority for audiovisual and digital communication,

Having regard to the French intellectual property code, in particular article L. 331-12;

Having regard to the French Sports Code, in particular article L.333-10;

After due deliberation,

Adopts the following notice:

The year 2025 marked a turning point in the fight against sports broadcasting piracy, with increased involvement of various types of intermediaries, under the impetus of sports rights holders, as part of the dynamic injunctions issued underarticle L. 333-10 of the French Sports Code.

In addition to the legal actions involving Internet Service Providers (ISPs), which have been fully integrated into the scheme since 2022, and in order to strengthen the effectiveness of the blocking measures implemented, rights holders have extended their legal actions, from 2023, to search engine operators, who play a key role as central players in the diffusion of information on the internet and in directing users to sports-related contdnt. Search engine operators are now almost systematically involved in actions taken by rights holders to protect sports competitions. Between 2024 and 2025, the number of delisting measures ordered by the courts and the number of measures notified by Arcom in application of the orders issued has dubbed.

In response to the misuse by some Internet users of domain name resolution services or virtual private networks (VPNs), rights holders then extended the scope of players taken to court to prevent access to services dedicated to the unlawful broadcasting of sports competitions. More than 5,000 blocking demands were notified to alternative DNS in 2025. As for virtual private network service providers, they were the subject of the first court verdicts, handed down on the basis ofarticle L. 333-10 of the French Sports Code, in May 2025, and as such are receiving a growing number of blocking demands to update the measures ordered by the judge.

Against this backdrop, strengthening cooperation between rights holders of sports-related content and the various intermediaries mentioned in the court orders would therefore appear to be desirable in order to give an even greater impact to the fight agains sports piracy. The parties are also invited to continue their exchanges with Arcom with a view to optimizing the provision of identification data and ensuring the simultaneous application of delisting and blocking measures by all technical intermediaries involved in preventing access to unlawful services.

Article L. 331-12 of the French intellectual property code makes provision for the adoption of notices by the Authority for the protection and promotion of creation, with the aim of encouraging the signing of voluntary agreements likely to help remedy infringements of copyright and neighbor rights, or of the audiovisual exploitation rights mentioned in article L. 333-10 of the French Sports Code, on electronic communications networks used for the provision of online public communication services.

In addition, under the terms of IV of article L. 333-10 of the French Sports Code, Arcom is responsible for adopting model agreements which the rights holders mentioned in I of the same article are invited to sign. The agreement concluded between the parties specifies, in particular, the measures that the parties undertake to take to put an end to any infringement of the exclusive audiovisual exploitation rights of the sports event or competition.

The Autorité recommends that the rights holders mentioned in I of article L. 333-10 of the French Sports Code, on the one hand, and any intermediaries implementing measures ordered on the basis of II of article L. 333-10 of the same code, on the other (notably search engine operators, domain name resolution services and virtual private network providers), enter into discussions with a view to concluding agreements that would reflect their joint commitment to fight agains the unlawful diffusion of sports-related events and competitions as effectively as possible.

To this end, Arcom is adopting two model agreements as a basis for discussion: one aimed at rights holders and search engine operators; the other at rights holders and intermediaries implementing blocking measures to prevent access to unlawful online public communication services, such as domain name resolution services and virtual private network providers (Annexes).

The purpose of these models is to facilitate the pre-litigation and litigation phases. They also define the types of measures that may be implemented by intermediaries in order to prevent, on the one hand, the listing by search engine operators of unlawful online public communication services whose principal objective, or one of their principal objectives, is the unauthorized diffusion of sports competitions or events and, on the other hand, access to these same services. They also make provision for the transmission of identification data from the services in question to the various intermediaries.

The present notice will be published in the Official Journal of the French Republic.

Paris, May 6, 2026.

For the French regulatory authority for audiovisual and digital communication :

The Chairman,

M. AJDARI