IOC Sends Thousands of DMCA Notices to Deter ‘Olympics’ Piracy

The International Olympic Committee is working around the clock to protect its broadcasting rights. Over the past week, IOC has sent thousands of DMCA takedown notices to Google. They reveal that torrent sites are a problem of the past; live-streaming sites are the main concern now.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is known to be very protective of its intellectual property rights.

Using an image of the Olympic rings or even just the word ‘Olympic’ can lead to legal trouble, especially when use takes place in a commercial context.

Most valuable, however, are IOC’s broadcasting rights. With literally billions of dollars at stake, the IOC and its licensing partners are doing everything in their power to prevent people from enjoying their events without permission.

From Torrents to Streaming

The IOC doesn’t shy away from using its power and influence to aid this cause. Sixteen years ago, for example, it reached out to the Swedish Government, asking for assistance to remove pirated Olympic broadcasts from The Pirate Bay.

Sweden couldn’t directly help with this problem, as it lacked any control over the notorious torrent site. The Pirate Bay itself didn’t feel threatened by the diplomatic pressure either. On the contrary, it temporarily renamed itself The Beijing Bay.

Today, Olympic piracy remains a problem, but the nature of the threat has evolved. Instead of worrying about torrents, the IOC sees live-streaming portals as the menace du jour. Unlike torrents, which can take a while to download, live streams directly compete with regular broadcasts.

Thousands of Olympic Takedowns

Last week, we already reported that the IOC, alongside others, obtained a site blocking order at the Paris Judicial Court. This order requires the large French ISPs to block access to several pirate streaming sites and IPTV providers.

While the blocking order is currently in effect, it is limited to 25 domain names and only applies to France. The Olympic Committee didn’t stop there though, it also enlisted anti-piracy partner Friend MTS to issue more traditional DMCA takedown requests.

Most of these DMCA efforts take place outside the public eye. With help from Google’s transparency report and the Lumen Database, we can nonetheless get a glimpse of the takedown action.

These public data reveal that IOC has sent numerous takedown notices this month, together targeting thousands of URLs. The notices request Google to remove these links from its search engine, to make it harder for the public to find pirated Olympics streams.

“Please note that the IOC is the owner of all rights in and to the Olympic Games and the Olympic Properties and, in particular, regarding the audio-visual content produced for the Olympic Summer Games Paris 2024,” IOC writes

“Such Olympic content may not be transmitted or communicated via the internet or any other interactive media or electronic medium without the express prior written approval of the IOC, which in accordance with our records, has not been granted to you.”

The Pirate Bay’s No Longer a Serious Threat

Thus far, the IOC has asked Google to remove 5,907 URLs from its search engine. The list is dominated by pirate streaming sites such as Antenasports.ru, Buff-streams.net, Francemag.com, and Watchsportnow.com. Interestingly, we didn’t spot a single torrent site.

Due to the delayed nature of torrents and direct downloads, in combination with widely available pirated live streams, it makes sense that sites such as The Pirate Bay are no longer considered a significant threat.

In fact, aside from the opening ceremony, we haven’t spotted any regularly scheduled ‘torrents’ of Olympic competitions. That’s a far cry from a decade ago when the original EZTV team openly revolted against IOC’s anti-piracy tactics by sharing numerous Olympic torrents.

“[T]he IOC is purely interested in making as much money from broadcasting as possible. We think differently, we believe everyone should be able to see these events freely and inspire future sport heroes!” EZTV told us at the time.

Fast-forward a decade, and the new EZTV team has no Olympic coverage and there is no “Paris Bay” either. IOC is still very much concerned with piracy, of course, but has shifted to a new set of targets.

Times change, but some things will always be the same.

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