Uneven level of law enforcement activity in the EU creates safe harbours for pirates

The Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA) has announced the 2023 awards given to an individual or team from the public sector for a successful initiative which supports the fight against audiovisual piracy. These are the 6th awards and were presented today at the Europol Intellectual Property Crime conference in Lisbon. The winner of the 2023 award is the Dutch Fiscal Information and Investigation Service (Fiscale inlichtingen- en opsporingsdienst, FIOD) for taking down an illegal Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service with over 1, 000, 000 users across Europe. On 23 May 2023, a series of raids were carried out across the Netherlands as part of an illegal streaming crackdown. The officers from the FIOD searched properties in various locations in The Netherlands. This operation also saw the closure of Globe Data Centre which distributed the illegal services. Commenting on the award Sheila Cassells, Executive Vice President of AAPA, said: “ The scale of this operation illustrates clearly why law enforcement must continue to act against illegal IPTV services. And the inclusion and closure of a major hosting provider reinforces the need for a clear and robust regulatory regime, including, for example, know you customer requirements, to be imposed on such actors. ” AAPA introduced a new category this year, giving an award to a public sector body acting in the Europol IP Crime conference host country, namely Portugal. The first such award was presented to Inspeção Geral das Atividades. Culturais (IGAC) and its General Inspector Luis Silveira Botelho. The award recognised the role played by IGAC in developing and implementing a comprehensive system of blocking orders under the framework provided by the law that entered into force on February 2022. This law regulates to control, remove and/or prevent access to illegal content, allowing, inter alia, for the imposition of blocking orders on ISPs also, thereby preventing the end user from gaining access to the illegal website or streaming service. Mark Mulready, Co-President of AAPA and VP, Cyber Services at Irdeto said: “In presenting this award, we are pleased to acknowledge the steps taken in Portugal to implement an efficient and dynamic system for blocking orders. We have seen from other countries how helpful such blocking orders can be and we hope that countries who have not yet introduced the possibility of blocking orders will take note of the system applied here.” AAPA also presented certificates of commendation to Podinspector Marcin Cyganek , an officer in the Central Bureau for Combating Cybercrime (CBZC), (previously the Cybercrime Unit in Katowice (Poland)) for his support and action taken to highlight the need for greater priority to be given to fighting IP crime. These actions included the closure of polsharing.com. Bulgaria, Italy, and Spain – previous recipients of an AAPA award – also received Certificates of Commendation. For Bulgaria, this acknowledges the continued role of the Bulgarian Cyber Crime Department in driving the EMPACT programme and for Operation Pheonix which resulted in the dismantling of a local organised crime group. The commendation for Italy for Operation Gotha involved 70 searches and seizures in 23 provinces of our country, dismantling a huge pirate IPTV network serving over 900k users , with profits estimated at 10 million euros . Operation Gotha’s investigation is a continuation of Operation Black Out. For Spain, the commendation recognizes the role of the National Police in Operation Fagus which resulted in the disconnection of the 32 servers that were distributing/hosting illegally the signal for 2,294 TV channels.