New Pirate IPTV Law: How Subscribers Will Inform Authorities Who to Fine €750

A criminal case believed to be the largest of its type ever launched in Greece went to trial last week. A total of 17 defendants stand accused of participating in a criminal organization that sold pirate IPTV subscriptions and benefited to the tune of 25 million euros. Under new law, members of the public who buy illegal IPTV packages face 700 euro fines. Today we take a look at how those people will get caught and what happens when they do.

Greece has a population of around 10.4 million and worldwide, Greek is the first language of just 13 million people.

Unlike content made available in English or Spanish, when Greek content starts to feel the piracy pinch, there’s no deep well of overseas markets to exploit. Increasingly, then, pressure finds itself directed inwards.

Greece is no stranger to anti-piracy measures and, after having tried almost everything else, the authorities hope that fining IPTV subscription buyers will nudge the population in the right direction.

More Blocking, Faster Blocking, Still Not Enough
Traditional blocking orders were first issued in Greece around 2012 under Article 64A of law 2121/1993. Mostly intermittent action continued until 2021 when EDPPI (the Committee for the Notification of Copyright and Related Rights Infringement on the Internet) was handed responsibility for tackling illicit broadcasts of live sporting events.

Rightsholders now have full access to DNS/IP address blocking, including in ‘real-time’ to protect live football matches. Greece operates an administrative system requiring no judicial oversight, but reports suggest that rightsholders would prefer more freedom and greater speed, to suppress activity highlighted in a recent EUIPO report.

A survey reported in ‘Foul play: millions of Europeans watch sporting events illegally‘ revealed that one-in-five Greeks admitted they had used illegal sources to consume live sporting events. That 20% placed Greece second only to Bulgaria, where 21% of the population admitted to the same.

More Frequent Enforcement Action
In October 2023, news of an unusually large enforcement operation began to emerge. Greek police said they had dismantled a criminal organization behind an illegal IPTV operation believed to have cost broadcasters Cosmote, Nova, and Vodafone, more than €100m.

The calculations supporting that figure are still unclear, and the same goes for the €25m in ‘benefit’ the service’s operators reportedly enjoyed over an eight-year period. Last week 17 people went on trial in what some are describing as the largest prosecution of its type ever seen in Greece.

The defendants stand accused of participation in a criminal organization that used pirate IPTV to generate significant wealth. Police say the defendants “legalized their criminal income” with real estate purchases, the formation of companies, and transactions involving betting companies. Police also seized half a dozen luxury cars and the same number of motorcycles.

If the outcome of that trial is considered a good fit, rightsholders and authorities will probably take the opportunity to highlight any prison sentences, fines, and damages, to send a wider deterrent message to the local population. The timing could hardly be better.

Specific legal amendments narrowly voted through last month now give the authorities the ability to fine pirates at the consumer end of the market and just about anyone else involved in the pirate IPTV market.

Article 65A – Administrative Sanctions
Administrative sanctions are already available in Greece to punish various intellectual property offenses. For example, anyone who reproduces, displays, sells or otherwise distributes unlicensed software to the public could be fined 1,000 euros for each illegal copy.

Those who “reproduce phonograms stored on any technical storage medium, including hard disks, whether or not integrated into a computer,” without obtaining permission, also face a potential fine of 1,000 euros for each illegal copy. For scale, a 256GB thumb drive can hold around 83,333 320kbps MP3 files.

Administrative Pirate IPTV-Related Fines
Offering piracy products or services on the internet, either through advertising or promotion, is now punishable by an administrative fine of 1,500 euros for each violation. “If the offense is carried out by presentation to the public in places of any nature,” those deemed to have done so with the aim of gaining “direct or indirect commercial financial benefit” face a fine of 5,000 euros for each violation.

For the ordinary user, fines of ‘just’ 750 euros await. A direct English translation of the Greek text is shown below. [The original text and translation are presented side by side for reference at the end of this article].

2B. Whoever, without right and in violation of this, retransmits, records, reproduces, in whole or in part, distributes by sale or in other ways, transmits by any means and manner, presents to the public in any way, including on-demand transmission, possesses or obtains access by possession of illegal equipment or software, with or without the intention of distribution and generally exploits illegal audiovisual works or broadcasts of radio and television organizations or national or international television events that are broadcast on the internet simultaneously with their implementation, including those where the possibility of monitoring is provided through audiovisual media service providers and communication media service providers, as defined in article 2 of law 4779/2021 (A’ 27), regardless of other sanctions, is subject to an administrative fine of seven hundred fifty (750) euros for each violation.

The section above is comprehensive and appears to go beyond basic consumption of infringing content. With the inclusion of the following statements [highlights added] the scope is not only quite broad, but also sets the bar low enough to ensure that watching infringing streams isn’t a strict requirement.

….possesses or obtains access….by….possession of illegal equipment or software….with or without the intention of distribution….is subject to an administrative fine of seven hundred fifty (750) euros for each violation.

In the context of illegal streaming services, ‘possession of illegal software’ necessarily defines software designed to access illegal streams, regardless of whether they’re illegal streams paid for by the user, or those obtained for free. The broader aim, it seems, is to eliminate argument over what the user intended to do.

Can Just Anyone Become a Target?
Possession isn’t explicitly defined in the text but any pirate-type app installed on a device could be enough to trigger a potential fine, even if an app never left the privacy of a user’s home. Indeed, the law anticipates that those who possess such apps may even be caught more than once. “In cases of infringement for private use,” repeat offending increases the administrative maximum from 750 euros per offense, to 1,500 euros per offense.

So are all pirates affected by these new rules? According to the text, probably not.

For practical reasons, anyone considered for a fine will already be known to the authorities, even if only in a very limited way. That could be a name, an email address, payment details, or whatever else people foolishly hand over to a pirate IPTV service or seller when buying a subscription.

“For the purpose of establishing the administrative violations [as detailed above] and imposing administrative fines, the competent judicial authorities are permitted to transmit to the authorities……the necessary data for identification of the offenders, which were collected and contained in a criminal case file drawn up following criminal prosecution for the crimes of article 66.

Article 66
Law-2121-1993 is available here and Article 66 details activities typically associated with commercial piracy, including activities often associated with those involved in the supply, sale, and/or distribution of infringing content/subscriptions to the public. Members of the public whose personal details become known to the authorities as part of an investigation against a pirate supplier, will have provided enough information to lead the authorities right to their door.

Whether that means a letter delivered by the mailman, or a visit from the authorities in person, will likely depend on the circumstances.

What happens after that will probably depend on any aggravating factors that come to light. When the fining process will actually begin is unknown but according to the authorities, the trial underway right now involves a customer list 13,000 entries long. Whether any of those customers are eligible for fines isn’t clear, but there’s unlikely to be a shortage of suitable targets moving forward.

Article 65A Amendments