Yes, yes piracy of sports and cultural contents remains well anchored in digital uses, the latest figures show a notable shift.
Indeed, between regulatory pressure, technical blockages and the mobilization of rights holders, notably with a massive action last year, the fight initiated in recent years seems to be producing measurable effects, without making the phenomenon disappear…
A decline driven by the strengthening of blockages
Good news for rights holders? – Source: Arcom
According to the latest Arcom report, streaming and illegal downloads fell by 4% in 2025. Over a wider period, between 2021 and 2025, the drop even reaches 34%, reflecting an underlying trend. In volume, this still represents 7.7 million Internet users affectedcompared to 11.7 million four years earlier.
This development is largely explained by the tightening of anti-piracy measures, because since 2022, more than 12,600 domain names linked to illegal broadcasting of sporting events have been blockedmore than half of which in the year 2025 alone. An acceleration which illustrates the rise in power of judicial and technical mechanisms.
Same logic on the side of cultural content, with 2,583 mirror sites blocked since 2022. These platforms, designed to circumvent bans by duplicating sites already sanctioned, are now in the regulator’s sights. Here again, almost half of the blockages were carried out in 2025…
IPTV and VPN: uses that complicate the fight
Despite this overall decline, piracy continues to transformespecially with the rise of IPTV services and VPNs which make it easier for users to bypass restrictions. These technologies, although initially designed for legitimate uses, are now massively misused to access illicit content.
Faced with these developments, Arcom is calling for a strengthening of existing tools, and a proposed law envisages in particular the establishment of dynamic real-time blocking of services which illegally broadcast sports competitions. The objective would then be to intervene directly on IP addressesin addition to domain name blocking, in order to reduce action times.
The rights holders, like Canal+also play a leading role in this strategy, by increasing legal actions to protect their content.
A still massive shortfall…
Le sport, première victime du piratage ? – Source : Arcom
If the indicators are trending downward, the economic consequences remain considerable. Piracy still represents a shortfall estimated at 1.5 billion euros for the cultural and sporting sectors, and alone, sport concentrates around 300 million euros in losses.
For broadcasters and platforms, the issue goes beyond the simple question of audiences, because it is also a question of preserve an economic model based on broadcasting rightsincreasingly costly to acquire in a competitive environment.
Thus, the decline observed in 2025 appears more as an encouraging signal than a definitive turning point. The fight against piracy is entering a new phase, more technical and more reactive, in the face of uses that continue to evolve…