EU Plans to Expedite Action Against Pirated Domains; Domain Industry Faces "Minute-Level" Compliance Window

A study commissioned by the European Parliament’s Committee on Legal Affairs, titled *Combating Online Piracy in Sports and Broadcasting in the EU*, argues that the current anti-piracy framework—relying primarily on "recommendations"—fails to keep pace with the speed at which pirate sites "resurrect" by simply switching domain names. The report advocates for shortening response times and extending obligations to include DNS resolvers, CDNs, VPNs, and domain-related intermediaries.

The primary value of pirated live broadcasts lies in the first few minutes after an event begins. When a site is blocked, operators often immediately switch to backup domains, mirror sites, or new DNS resolutions. Traditional judicial injunctions or UDRP proceedings—which take days or even weeks—cannot keep up with this pace. Although the European Commission issued recommendations in 2023 to combat live-streaming piracy, these lack binding force, leading to inconsistent implementation across member states. The study concludes that "soft" recommendations are insufficient and calls for enforceable, harmonized rules.

Italy’s "Piracy Shield" system is cited as a model: once rights holders submit a request, the relevant domains or IP addresses are blocked—with DNS resolution disabled and traffic cut off—within approximately 30 minutes. While the mechanism has blocked tens of thousands of domains, it has also faced criticism for erroneous blocking and slow appeal processes. Notably, Cloudflare was previously fined approximately €14.2 million for failing to implement blocks within its public DNS service.

There are four key changes facing the domain name industry.

First, registrars and registries are moving closer to the point of enforcement. Regarding domains on piracy blocklists, they may be required to temporarily suspend DNS resolution and lock the domains, as well as cooperate in updating mirrors and variants. When combined with the registrant verification requirements under NIS2, this creates a management workflow characterized by "verify first, resolve later, and suspend at any time."

Second, the DNS layer is no longer merely a neutral bystander. Once public DNS services and recursive resolvers are included in blocking orders, the scope of the block shifts from the local level (at the access provider) to the resolution layer—covering entire regions or even wider areas. The argument that one "only handles resolution and does not host content" may no longer serve as a sufficient legal defense.

Third, legitimate domains face the risk of collateral damage. Research indicates that during a blocking window for sports events in Spain, approximately 554,000 domains were blocked at least once, including a vast number of unrelated resources. Rapid blocking coupled with slow appeal processes poses a significant threat to domains used for brand protection, promotional events, and CDN aliases.

Fourth, traditional dispute resolution procedures will not be replaced, but the workload will be diverted. While UDRP and .EU ADR processes—which address ownership rights and bad-faith registration—remain in place with their typical multi-week timelines, cases involving live-stream piracy are more likely to be handled via dynamic administrative or judicial blocking orders; in these instances, resolution is suspended immediately, with the issue of domain recovery addressed later.

Industry practitioners can take three initial steps: registrars and resolution service providers should streamline complaint channels, define protocols for suspending resolution, and establish procedures for reversing erroneous blocks; brand owners should upgrade their monitoring from simple "string similarity" checks to tracking mirror sites, new registrations, and changes in resolution; and enterprises should verify their registration data and prepare backup resolution options for core business operations to prevent sudden service interruptions caused by inaccurate information or accidental inclusion on blocklists.

It is important to distinguish that this remains a study commissioned by the European Parliament rather than an enacted, EU-wide regulation. However, the policy direction is clear: domain names are evolving from simple identifiers into infrastructure that can be toggled on or off in real-time. Ultimately, the true impact will depend not on the severity of the rhetoric, but on whether obligations regarding timeframes are standardized, whether they extend to both DNS providers and registrars, and whether services can be restored just as quickly after an erroneous block occurs.