Illegal streaming and IPTV are on the rise, but Arcom is keeping an eye out. In 2023, no fewer than 1,544 domain names have been blocked by French operators. However, not everything can be blocked.
Have you heard of Arcom? This public entity was born from the merger of the CSA and Hadopi in 2022, and among their missions: the fight against content piracy.
And Arcom is pleased with its work. Thus, in 2023, 1,544 domain names have been blocked by Free, SFR, Orange and Bouygues following a request from the audiovisual regulatory authority. But how does Arcom actually go about combating these illegal practices?
First of all, Arcom draws up a list of domain names and IP addresses to ban. This list is transmitted to French operators, whose mission is to block access to these sites. Basically, after a court decision, Arcom lists the domain names and IPs to be banned, the presence of illegal content is checked again, the operators execute. This method seems to be bearing fruit, since according to Arcom, the level of consumption of illicit live streaming is down 26% compared to 2021.
How to circumvent these measures?
But there is a circumvention system that goes under this radar and is in strong development: VPNs. VPNs, or virtual private networks, allow you to hide your IP address and connect to a server located in another country. Thus, it is possible to bypass the blocks put in place by French operators and access content that is normally inaccessible.
How does Arcom intend to fight against this phenomenon? For the moment, the regulatory authority has not yet found a miracle solution. VPNs are legal and have many legitimate uses, so it’s difficult to ban them outright.
France is even on the side of VPNs, Arcep has launched projects to uncover and remove in certain cases, blocking of services and types of use such as the modem function of terminals, peer to peer, VoIP or newsgroups. All this to comply with the European regulation guaranteeing net neutrality.