French lawmakers have officially adopted a new sports law that replaces manual domain checks with support for automated, real-time piracy blocking. The system allows for instant blockades during live sports broadcasts, with oversight checks from regulator ARCOM being applied afterward rather than before.
More recently, it has been one of the pirate site blocking pioneers. In addition to demanding action from ISPs, their orders also targeted DNS resolvers and VPN providers.
While the expansion of the blocking measures is still contested, French lawmakers have already prepared the next one.
The French Parliament has handed ARCOM, the country’s audiovisual and digital regulator, the power to block pirate sports streams in real time without checking each targeted piracy source manually. The change is part of a broader professional sports law that both chambers formally adopted on July 21.
Article 10 of the new law rewrites the section of the previous sports law, Article L. 333-10, which rights holders have used to block pirate streaming sites in recent years.
Under the old system, a rightsholder would obtain a blocking order in court, targeting specific domain names. These orders would require ISPs, DNS resolvers, or VPN services to block access on their systems.
If new domains were spotted later, rightsholders would send these to ARCOM, whose sworn agents would confirm that each one is streaming matches illegally before ISPs are ordered to block these.
One of these older orders was issued on July 8 by the Court of Paris. In that case, the French football league (LFP) won a block against nine Internet providers, covering the full 2026/2027 season, with ARCOM having to approve each new site that’s added along the way.
The order lists 30 domains and their associated subdomains, including kzontop.com, ligue1live.xyz, iptvfrancai.com, euroiptv.fr and sportsurge100.is.
Under the old system, it can take days before a new target is added. That’s a problem when dealing with live-streaming piracy, one that the new law aims to fix.
The new law strips out the pre-check of domain names (or IP addresses) that are added after the initial order is issued. It lets ARCOM run an automated system that pushes freshly identified targets straight to providers during a live broadcast. The providers then have to take action “without delay”.
ARCOM’s agents no longer approve each block in advance, but they keep an oversight role. They will now audit the new additions afterward, and a blocked party can appeal to ARCOM’s president, even while the targeted sports event is ongoing.
The new law is expected to significantly increase the volume of blocked sites and services, with the goal to further deter live-streaming piracy.
The judicial process leading up to the blocks barely changes, with one significant exception. Foreign entities that organize or hold rights to competitions abroad can now bring these actions in French courts themselves, opening the door for Spain’s LaLiga and England’s Premier League.
The groundwork for the blocking scheme was already laid. Under a private 2025 agreement between rights holders and ISPs, first revealed by L’Informé, the parties tested real-time IP address blocking during the 2026 World Cup, with ARCOM involved.
French officials have not hidden the inspiration for the new law. In a study delivered to the Assemblée nationale in December 2025, the regulator recommended this automated real-time system, citing foreign precedents including Italy’s “Piracy Shield”.
The head of Italy’s own regulator AGCOM, Massimiliano Capitanio, publicly welcomed the vote on Instagram, describing it as France adopting a version of its “Piracy Shield” model.
That comparison is sensitive. Italy’s system has been heavily criticized for overblocking, at one point knocking Cloudflare and countless unrelated sites offline. European ISPs have since demanded that rightsholders be held liable for overblocking damage.
This critique is one of the reasons why ARCOM keeps a human supervision element in the takedown process. This is to avoid overblocking, which the regulator considered as being potentially unconstitutional in France.
With the new French law, yet another country moved to a more automated site blocking process. This follows the example of Italy and other countries, with support from rightsholders including the Motion Picture Association.
The updates to the French sports law still have to be implemented formally, which isn’t expected to happen until later this year.
Whether existing orders like the LFP’s will migrate to the automated system once it goes live, or whether only future orders will, is not yet clear. For now, however, France’s pirate sports blocking still runs the old, manual way.
—
The Sports Law, adopted on July 21, can be found via the Assemblée nationale dossier here. A copy of the Court of Paris ruling in the LFP blocking case, issued on July 8, is available here (pdf).
Source: Torrent Freak
