{"id":85775,"date":"2025-10-25T09:00:25","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T09:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=85775"},"modified":"2025-10-25T09:00:25","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T09:00:25","slug":"uefa-joins-anti-piracy-coalition-ace-to-protect-growing-revenues-from-piracy-surge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=85775","title":{"rendered":"UEFA Joins Anti-Piracy Coalition ACE to Protect Growing Revenues from Piracy Surge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"championsEuropean football association UEFA<\/a> was founded in 1954 to protect the interests of European football, particularly within the global FIFA body. <\/p>\n

During the early years its powers were rather limited. UEFA was mostly an administrative union, consisting of three employees who issued non-binding recommendations to member associations. <\/p>\n

In 1955, less than a year after UEFA was formed, journalists of the French newspaper L\u2019\u00c9quipe<\/a> proposed the launch of a European club championship. UEFA was initially hesitant to adopt the idea but eventually moved the project ahead. <\/p>\n

The resulting European Cup was commercialized as the UEFA Champions League in 1992. This is widely recognized as the most prestigious club prize in football and with billions of euros in annual revenues, it\u2019s also serious business. <\/p>\n

UEFA Joins Anti-Piracy Coalition ACE<\/h2>\n

With this much money on the line, UEFA has a vested interest in protecting the competition from piracy. Many millions of fans who can\u2019t afford paid access or prefer to use the money elsewhere, turn to free streams instead, contributing to what UEFA believes is a significant financial loss.<\/p>\n

Over the past several years, UEFA has targeted pirate streams through site-blocking efforts and takedown requests. Yet despite these anti-piracy measures, the piracy problem only appears to have become worse. That\u2019s likely one of the key reasons behind its partnership with anti-piracy coalition ACE<\/a> announced this week.<\/p>\n

UEFA itself is a not-for-profit operation, but UC3, a commercial joint venture with football clubs, exploits the multi-billion-euro broadcast rights contracts. By joining ACE, it can now rely on technological resources and law enforcement contacts around the globe. <\/p>\n

The European football association is the first sports exclusive rights holder to join ACE and will play an active role in the ACE \u201cLive Tier\u201d. Other prominent members of the MPA-led alliance include the major Hollywood studios, Netflix, Amazon, and beIN.<\/p>\n

\u201cUEFA joining ACE represents a landmark moment in our global content protection strategy,\u201d says UEFA\u2019s Guy-Laurent Epstein, commenting on the new. \u201cThis partnership allows us to expand our enforcement capabilities, deepen our existing collaboration with industry leaders and leverage ACE\u2019s proven capabilities to disrupt illegal services.\u201d<\/p>\n

Targets: Pirate IPTV and Hydra sites<\/h2>\n

As the name suggests, ACE\u2019s \u2018Live Tier\u2019 focuses on sites and services that offer live streams. Speaking with TorrentFreak, MPA\u2019s Deputy Chief of Content Protection Dani Bacsa notes that priority targets include pirate IPTV services and so-called hydra sites that offer live content. <\/p>\n

These targets are typically selected in consultation with members. The potential enforcement actions are similar to those taken against other types of piracy. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe use the same toolkit we use to tackle other forms of digital piracy, which has been tested and proven. These range from out-of-court settlements and voluntary initiatives to civil litigation and working with law enforcement agencies to dismantle major criminal networks,\u201d Bacsa says. <\/p>\n

\u201cOne thing that we are well aware of is that live content has a short shelf life, and we need to act expeditiously and time operations when they make the most impact. Any activity carried out by ACE is agreed upon and approved by its members.\u201d <\/p>\n

MPA and UEFA have previously filed their blocking requests separately in France, India, and elsewhere. In theory, MPA\/ACE could take this up in the future as they do for other members. However, when we asked about this directly, we received a \u201cno comment\u201d instead of a more direct \u201cno\u201d.<\/p>\n

Whether more sports leagues and football organizations will join ACE in the future is unknown, but the anti-piracy coalition is certainly open to it. It was always stressed that cooperation is key to defeating piracy, and a broader membership base serves this goal. <\/p>\n

\u201cACE is cooperating and coordinating with multiple non-member partners, including leagues, to various extents and capacities. We would always welcome closer collaboration and partnerships to increase our collective force,\u201d Bacsa tells us. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s Not Just Piracy That\u2019s Grown<\/h2>\n

There is no denying that sports piracy is a serious and growing problem. According to EU data<\/a>, 12% of EU citizens watch sports content through illegal online sources, which goes up to 27% for people between 15 and 24. <\/p>\n

However, this doesn\u2019t mean that the revenues from sports rights are dwindling. On the contrary, it has grown spectacularly over the past decades. <\/p>\n

In the first Champions League season, income was a relatively modest \u20ac46 million<\/a>. Roughly half of this flowed back to the clubs. By the end of the decade, as the tournament expanded from 8 to 32 teams, revenues had grown to hundreds of millions.<\/p>\n

The 2006\/2007 Champions League was a milestone, with revenues exceeding half a billion euros for the first time. For the 2013\/2014 season, seven years later, revenues had doubled to a billion euros. <\/p>\n

While these are healthy revenue numbers, growth exploded in recent years. UEFA\u2019s men\u2019s club competitions now bring in \u20ac4.4 billion, with UEFA already eyeing the \u20ac5 billion mark for the near future, with Netflix showing interest in the rights.<\/p>\n

UEFA would likely argue that there could be even more potential income if piracy was defeated. However, one can also argue that the surge in revenues contributes to a key motivation to pirate. After all, the billions paid for broadcasting rights are in large part passed on to consumers whose TV subscription costs aren\u2019t getting any cheaper.<\/p>\n

From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\n

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European football association UEFA was founded in 1954 to protect the interests of European football, particularly within the global FIFA body. During the early years its powers were rather limited. UEFA was mostly an administrative union, consisting of three employees who issued non-binding recommendations to member associations. In 1955, less than a year after UEFA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":85776,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-torrent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/85776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}