As the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance issues its inaugural five-year manifesto, Executive Director Miruna Herovanu tells David Davies about the need for fresh measures to tackle problems such as live content piracy.
Published on 1 October 2024, the 2024-2029 EU Manifesto from the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA) lays out the economic significance of the content industries and the challenges they currently face in protecting their wares in stark detail. It also calls for new legislation and the toughening up of existing laws to help limit the impact of piracy, which as the document notes, extends “beyond immediate economic losses”. It adds: “They undermine the financial viability of legitimate services, reduce the quality and diversity of content available to consumers, and weaken the overall economic fabric by evading taxation and social contribution.”
The manifesto, which is a first for the organisation, is a compelling overview and call to action from AAPA, which is concentrated on “leading the charge against audio-visual piracy” on behalf of companies in Europe and beyond. Its membership encompasses rights owners, broadcasters, security technology providers, and manufacturers of products that enable the delivery of secure audio-visual content.
Heading up AAPA as Executive Director is Miruna Herovanu, who was previously Director at the Association of Commercial Television and Video on Demand in Europe, in charge of Intellectual property and competition policies. She believes the manifesto is being issued at a critical juncture when national and international policy work must be urgently translated into specific measures.
“The rise of digital theft demands action,” she says. “We call for strong political resolve to end the theft of our members’ content. We’re ready to support every stakeholder – law enforcement, policymakers, and industry representatives – to dismantle criminal networks and protect European consumers from harm.”
Read more Content security: how watermarking and blocking are helping to combat the pirates
Aggregating Knowledge
Invited to nominate some of the overarching priorities in her new role, Herovanu points to the vital need to combine the knowledge and findings of AAPA members in the various working groups, which include units dedicated to hosting services, social media, and training and awareness. “All of these can play a role in the piracy ecosystem, and for us, it’s very important to aggregate all the knowledge that our members hold from their day-to-day battle against online piracy – then present it in such a way that it can be used wisely and first-hand by [all those who can benefit],” she says.
“Pirates can take advantage of any sort of weakness that an intermediary shows” Miruna Herovanu, AAPA
The fact that such a collaborative structure is in place is arguably just as well given that, in Herovanu’s words, the overall outlook for content piracy in 2024 is “getting worse”.
She continues: “Despite the fact that technology is evolving, the investment that our members make in time, technology and legal measures […] is not a match for the players who completely disobey the letter of the law, operate in the dark, and are developing [new methods of piracy] at an incredible speed.”
The new manifesto leaves readers in no doubt about the nature of modern-day content piracy – “a sophisticated enterprise carried out by highly organised criminals” – or the economic consequences of allowing it to flourish. Noting that the sports and audio-visual sectors collectively contribute more than 5% of the EU’s total GDP and 5% of the continent’s employment, AAPA cites data from the European Audiovisual Observatory that expenditure by audiovisual services – including broadcasters and streaming platforms – amounted to €20.8bn in 2022 for European content. Original and sports programming are shown to be especially significant in this overall expenditure, with spending on sports rights growing “significantly faster” than other programming types.
Set against this are the findings of a 2022 AAPA study which revealed that pay TV operators incurred losses amounting to €3.21bn in 2021 due to illicit IPTV piracy alone, with illegal operators’ gains estimated at €1bn. The report notes that this is “only a fraction of a much bigger problem involving numerous different methods (the study does not include website or social media policy, for example).”
Inevitably, the negative financial impact of piracy on content services and their partners has direct implications for employment, taxable income, reinvestment in content, and grassroots sports development.
Regarding particular areas of concern, Herovanu highlights the impact of social media sites where firm anti-piracy precautions are yet to be developed. “Pirates can take advantage of any sort of weakness that an intermediary shows,” she says. “Anywhere where the intermediaries or social media companies don’t have strong internal policies that could specifically lead to a virus [is a major worry].”
The “double-edged” nature of AI – which could evidently be used as both a weapon against content services and a part of their own protective armour – is also something with which “some of my members are very preoccupied,” says Herovanu. “They want to understand how they can protect their content from being used by AI as part of a data basis without remuneration, [but] obviously AI systems can be employed to recognise the illegal content. Then the greater question that arises is whether broadcasters’ content is protected [sufficiently] for it not to be aggregated… [Therefore] the legal questions are extremely complex.”
Live Content Takedown
“The underlying issues with AI can only be addressed in a collaborative manner” Miruna Herovanu, AAPA
In some aspects, however, the legislative needs in 2024 appear quite transparent. Within its manifesto, AAPA acknowledges that “there are tools in the current EU legislative framework that can help”, but the multiple possible interpretations by rights owners and a significant number of intermediaries mean there is a case for a new regulatory framework that should pay particular attention to the “unique characteristics of live content”.
“The European Commission should propose legislation which ensures near immediate takedown of live content, at the latest in November 2025, at the end of the data-collection exercise jointly run by the EU Intellectual Property Office and European Commission. Such an approach would further enhance the EU’s capability to effectively combat online piracy and protect both content creators and consumers,” notes AAPA.
Other measures in the manifesto include a call for a strengthening of the existing Digital Services Act to ensure that “what is illegal offline is illegal online”, and a harmonising of EU-level protection for audio-visual content to safeguard robust investment in original content and grassroots sports. The latter should include the uniform application of the Direction of the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRED), along with a “watchful eye” on the implementation of Article 17 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive.
Not suprisingly, the potential impact of AI technologies is also tackled by the manifesto. Whilst the EU “has and is continuing to lead the way in regulating this emergent area,” the trailblazing EU AI Act – which passed into law on 1st August this year – “should be adequately and robustly implemented and enforced”. This includes the union avoiding the development of “safe havens” for AI firms to utilise rights holder content with impunity.
AV content is arguably “the least developed area by AI,” says Herovanu. “I don’t think there is yet the capacity to create a whole movie [with AI]. But that probably will [happen] and that will become a challenge as well. I think the underlying issues with AI can only be addressed in a collaborative manner, [especially] if there is no common solution to be agreed upon by all parts of the copyright and testing industries.”
In an increasingly complex broadcast and media environment, AAPA has a critical role as a partner for “various intermediaries” who are eager to boost safety and protect their IP. Hence the emphasis that the manifesto places on promoting productive relationships with players such as internet service providers, hosting providers, domain name system providers, content delivery networks, payment processors, social networks and social engines.
As Herovanu says: “The challenges faced by AAPA members in addressing online piracy are not always apparent to online intermediaries. Therefore, we are unwavering in our commitment to ongoing bilateral discussions with online intermediaries to sustain the successful collaboration AAPA has cultivated over the years with key stakeholders in the fight against online piracy.”
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