Background

AuthorPanella, Lauro
Pages1-1
Challe nges fac ing sports eve nt organisers in the digital environ ment
1
1. Background
The European added value (E AV A) unit of the European Parliamentary Research Service analyses the
pote ntial ben efits of Un ion actio ns and p olicies. One of the unit's s pecific objectives is t o use an
evidence-base d appr oach t o iden tify p olicy a reas where t her e are s ignifica nt po tential p ossibilities
for the r ealisation of a ' public goo d' and/or po ssible greater ef ficiency thr ough common act ion at
EU level, a s well as to pinpoint where such action is currently absent.
This European added value assess ment ( EAVA ) fo cuse s on t he challeng es faci ng o rgan iser s of s ports
events in t he digital environment, in connection with the specific phenomenon of online pir acy and
how it hinders the full achievement of digit al single mark et gains. Even though the EU has t aken
several s teps in th is reg ard in recent years, the develo pment of cutting edge techn ologies requires
continuous and appropriate regulation.
The concept of complet ing the gains from the digital single market could form part of a broader set
of EU o bjectives to be pursued using an evidence-based approach to policy formulation. The idea is
that, u nless evidence of remaining unrealised EU added value is put forward, then Member States
have no incent ive to tran sfer competencies and the accompanying resources to t he common level.
From a citizen's pers pective, assessing the costs (i.e. data theft and privacy in fringement) d er iving
from th e phenomenon of piracy would enable the Europ ean Parlia ment to bu ild a po sitive na rrative
around the added va lue th at the EU has already achieved, as well as the subs equent potential to
increase cons umer welf are by mean s of EU actio n.
Under Article 225 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the European
Parliament has th e right to adopt legislat ive own -initiativ e r epo rts (INL) to ask the European
Comm ission t o tak e legislativ e action . In this legal context, the Committee on Legal A ffairs (JURI)
request ed authorisation from the Conference of Committ ee Chairs (CCC) to d raw up a le gislative
own-init iativ e repo rt o n 'Challenges of sport events' org ani sers in the digita l envir onment'. T h e CCC
in turn asked the Conference of Presidents (CoP) for authorisation. The Co P noted and e ndo rs ed the
agreement reached between the JURI committ ee and the Committee on Culture and Education
(CULT), the fo rmer being th e committee res ponsible for the legislative initiat ive4. Mo re sp ecifically,
followin g a discussion on methodological approaches to ident ifying th e limitations of and gaps in
the digit al single market, e-Commer ce and Digita l Copyrig ht Directives , the Eu ropean Parliament
commission ed a stu dy from a team of resear chers at Lega nce Avvoca ti As so ciati, under the
direct ion o f digita l copyr ight expert Professor Paolo Marzano.
The main pur pose of the annexed study underpinning th is EAVA wa s to present an analysis of the
possible impact of new EU legislation on legal protection for sports events br oadcasters in the
European Union, with a focus on the issue of online pirated sport contents.
Against this background, the rest of this EAVA is structured as follows. Chapt ers 2 and 3, respectively,
discuss the state of play and the main gaps in and limitat io ns of the leg al frame work for IPR s and the
legal enforcement sys tem. Cha pter 4 pr esents both the policy pr oposal and the associated
legislativ e proposals . Chapter 5 assesses the European added value and Annex I presents the
externally commis sioned legal analysis.
4 Legislati ve initiati ve on ‘Challe nges of sport events’ organisers in t he digital environment ’ - 2020/2073(INL).

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