Speech by Martin Ajdari, President of Arcom, at the conclusion of the APPSu Forum

Check against delivery,

Mr. Deputy,

Mr. President of APSS, Mr. General Delegate,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

dear friends,

It gives me great pleasure to conclude this APPS seminar devoted to the fight agains sports-related contdnt piracy. As a sports fan myself, and a loyal supporter of FC Nantes for over 50 years, I am well aware of the importance of protecting broadcasting rights which, thanks to the diffusion of soccer by several successive channels, have been and are more than ever a condition of the championship's competitiveness.

More broadly speaking, piracy is both a scourge and a major economic issue (estimated total loss of revenue of €1.5 billion, including €300 million for sport), for the world of sport, both professional and amateur, as well as for the media, which are essential to our cultural model. The stakes are therefore high.

I'll be brief because, in the end, thanks to the work accomplished over the last few years, we have a clear diagnosis and solutions to propose that can be formulated simply. This morning's debates have demonstrated this, and Arcom, which I have the honor of chairing, has contributed to this thanks to Pauline's excellent presentation.

For my part, I have drawn three conclusions from these discussions, all of which are summonses to action.

The first is that the fight agains piracy works: since the mission entrusted to Arcom was extended to 2021, it has become both much more effective and more consensual.

First and foremost, this action is effective in at least three ways:

• 1/ Through its impact: In terms of sports-related piracy, live-streaming has fallen by 70% since 2021, and France has a number of monthly visits per inhabitant to sites offering pirated live sports-related contdnt that is 20% lower than the European Union average;
• 2/ Arcom's productivity: we are able to carry out eight times as many blockings as in 2022, within an average timeframe of less than 7 days, which can be reduced to less than 4 hours in emergencies;
• 3/ By its ability to adapt to market developments:
  • Firstly, by acting on intermediaries, including new players: in 2025, we have notified 1,800 search engines, but also 5,300 alternative DNS services, and, new in 2025, almost 600 VPN services.
  • Then there are the new piracy models: in 2026, of the 6,500 notifications, 4,000 concern IPTV services.

In all, 20,000 domain names have been blocked since 2022, three quarters of them at Arcom's request. It's a result we can all congratulate ourselves on, and in which we can all claim a share: athletes, organizers, leagues, federations, rights-holding media, the judiciary, whose progress is to be applauded, and the regulator.

More effective, the fight against piracy has also become more consensual: in the past, Hadopi's actions did not always win public support, nor did they enjoy the consensus that this morning's seminar, for example, supplies. We have first and foremost been able to increase the number of high-quality, accessible supplies offered by publishers and sports players - which has revoked one of the historical justifications for piracy, however misleading it may have been.

But it's also thanks to the educational efforts made to explain the impact of piracy on the financing of sport and creativity, efforts which have borne fruit. This consensus is also an asset on which we can collectively build to develop and deepen our action.

The second lesson is precisely that our action must constantly adapt to technical developments - because pirates do.

Two new developments were highlighted this morning, which justify a development in our means of action:

• Firstly, the growing inclusion of piracy and its benefits in more violent crime patterns - linked, for example, to drug trafficking, whose networks and implications were described this morning by OFAC, and whose operation last week showed how different types of crime are interconnected;
• Secondly, developments in methods of accessing pirated content - with the development of IPTV offers - a practice whose potential for predation on the entire audio and video supply is considerable. As I said, we have begun to take action on these services, but we need to step up a gear.

Our action must therefore be adapted, because the impact of current tools, which we are using to the full, is beginning to show its limits. For example, the decrease in piracy seems to be slowing down in 2025 compared with previous years, and Arcom's departments can hardly increase their productivity any further, given the human means and technical and legal tools at their disposal.

Furthermore, in our new fields of action, we are faced with an uneven attitude on the part of certain players, particularly intermediaries. Some, like Google, cooperate effectively with Arcom. Others, such as Cloudflare, are clearly recalcitrant, as are some VPN providers.

So, despite the effectiveness of our action, sports-related contdnt piracy remains a massive issue, quite literally: almost 18% of French people said they consumed sports-related contdnt illegally in 2024, with two main, non-exclusive modes of access: 16% on live streaming sites, and 12% via illegal IPTV services.

The third lesson I would like to draw from this morning is that the levers for doing things better, faster and more efficiently are well identified and broadly accepted.

Internationally, the Spanish example shows that an uncompromising legislative framework, backed up by very proactive measures - such as legal injunctions against ISPs - can produce spectacular results, including for new IPTV supply models.

Technically, sports diffusion players have the tools to intervene more rapidly, as demonstrated this morning by Canal +, and already deployed, notably in Africa. But the law must also make provision for this in France.

Arcom is also gearing up for development.

Its departments are working hard to be in a position to deploy Internet Protocol blocking as early as spring 2026, and the necessary technical developments to our own information scheme are proceeding according to plan, within the framework of the agreement signed just under a year ago.

However, this major step forward will not guarantee massive, live, real-time Internet Protocol blocking, which is the decisive step forward for Internet Protocol, and which requires legal development.

This is one of the main aims of the bill proposed by Laurent Lafon and Michel Savin, the adoption of which would enable us to take an important and necessary step forward very quickly, since all the other conditions for its implementation (technical in particular) have been met.

The resumption of parliamentary scrutiny of these provisions, in the French National Assembly, could also provide an opportunity to supplement the text to give Arcom coercive powers of sanction (and not just injunction) to enforce the DNS blocking demands we notify, given the enforcement difficulties we encounter with certain VPNs and alternative DNS.

For obvious reasons, it would be a strong symbolic victory if all these improvements were finally adopted before the World Cup.

At the same time as these developments, I would like to see us make more effective use of the RSN's trusted flagger status, pending the Commission's guidelines. I know that those involved in sports diffusion, starting with the channels, have not waited for us and have begun to work effectively with certain platforms, and this is an initiative that I welcome.

To conclude, I think I can say that all the ingredients are there - we are convinced that our action is effective when it is well equipped; we are collectively aware that there is a great deal at stake in taking action against delinquency and for the economic model of sport; finally, we have the international examples, the technical tools needed to increase, and the legislative provisions have already been written, and voted for by one of the two chambers of Parliament.

That's why, in conclusion, I have only one message, which is a call to action, to the attention of both the Government and the Members of Parliament, to put on the agenda of the French National Assembly the provisions necessary to protect sport, athletes and part of the media economy.

Thank you very much.