UEFA Euro 2024 kicks off in mid-June in Munich, Germany. The much-awaited tournament garners massive attention from football lovers, not just in Europe but worldwide. This also makes the UEFA Champions League the third-most pirated sports tournament, with the 2023 final alone attracting 47.4 million illegal streams. Meanwhile, the UK is suffering from rampant pirated football streaming. In a 2023 study, 5.1 million viewers confirmed they used illicit modes to watch sports, while another 3+ million were unsure whether their sources were legal.

With such a popular event just around the corner, distributors and ISPs must reassess and prepare their streaming platforms to combat the pervasive problem of piracy and the consequent revenue losses.

Forms of Sports Piracy

Streamers set up websites and even apps that offer live streams of popular games without going through the legalities of doing so. They gain access to sports streams by hacking into legitimate live streams, scraping the web, or setting up streaming servers.

Copyright infringement, in which pirates stream the sourced content in different forms, includes:

• Streaming of live sports without proper authorisation and licensing renewal.
• Repeat on-demand streaming of sports events through subscription-based IPTV services, without proper retransmission rights.
• Public broadcasting without adequate commercial licenses.

How Illegal Sports Content Reaches Customers

The most common ways of illegally accessing premium content by users are:

• Torrent Links: Customers download bits of files from multiple sources to combine and form the complete file later.
• P2P Sharing: Peer-to-peer networks connect users directly to a single stream, often licensed, from where multiple users can download and watch live sports.
• VPNs: Virtual private networks are a popular technique for unlicensed users to access geo-restricted content.
• Social Media: Direct sharing, screen recording, and link duplication are common ways through which pirated content is made viral on social media.
• Mirroring: Mirroring and proxy servers enable pirates to continue their activities even if their primary website is taken down.

Motivations Behind Sports Content Piracy

Customers: Subscription Fatigue

Password sharing is popularly used by users that may not realise that this is also a form of piracy. They casually share passwords and even record screens to give their friends and family access to online content. Sharing passwords is the outcome of subscription fatigue and fragmentation in the sports streaming industry. Rising subscription costs and surging inflation drive users to find workarounds to access the content they need affordably. They end up falling victim to the above-listed modes of illegal access while trying to find “a cheaper alternative.”

Pirates: Advertisement Revenues

Pirate websites are full of unsolicited advertisements. They also sell customer data to third parties to boost revenues. While this violates various laws, it also makes users vulnerable to other forms of crime. For instance, pirate websites might become the source of malware entering user devices or use the viewer’s hard-earned money to fund illegal activities, such as terrorism. Additionally, pirates may hack into systems just because they can, as a fun activity to prove their expertise in the technology.

Curtailing the Piracy Problem

“If piracy is left uncontrolled, it’s putting the whole football ecosystem at risk, not only the commercial model that we have in place but also this very important solidarity function. That’s why we take it extremely seriously,” says Diego Dabrio, UEFA’s Senior Anti-Piracy Expert. He highlights 4 key areas to form a comprehensive anti-piracy strategy.

1.   Communication

Bringing media partners, sponsors, advertisers, and broadcasters up to speed with all the activities at the organization level and seeking their feedback to understand their challenges and ground realities of the situation. 

2.   Cooperation

Intellectual property theft in the sports industry is a pressing issue that demands collaborative action. Governments, stakeholders, and other participants in the digital space, including ISPs, social media platforms, and technologists, must come together to share intelligence and expertise to combat piracy. 

3.   Change

There needs to be general awareness among consumers about piracy NOT being a victimless crime. They also must make efforts to adopt measures to make sports streams and entertainment, in general, more accessible and affordable for enthusiasts. 

4.   Disruption

This is a real-time approach that leverages advanced technologies and ISP blocking to eliminate illicit links and discontinue access to sports streams for illegal viewers.

UEFA has obtained an ISP blocking order to render the IPs of servers where illegal streams originate dysfunctional. Moreover, the organisation will partner with only those IPTV service providers that have adequate licenses and technology to prevent stream ripping and illegal downloads.

Leverage Cutting Edge Technologies

As the tournament closes in, ISPs across the world need to ensure that their technology stack is ready to detect, disengage and prevent attempts to maliciously access the content they have secured rights for. They should also adopt robust data rights management (DRM) measures to make sure that only verified users can access the content for pre-determined purposes.

Forensic watermarking and web crawling form the most effective duo to combat piracy in real time. While web crawling helps identify all transmission streams, watermarking separates the legal from the illegal. To make the most of the technique, ISPs must watermark the streams at origination and not at the client side. Dynamic and headend watermarking effectively leverage blocking rights and shut down illegitimate links immediately.

The sports industry loses $28.3 billion to piracy every year. This forms 51.5% of the sports streaming market, which was worth $55 billion in 2022. To make sure that you do not lose sponsorships and advertisement revenues to pirates this season, fortify your anti-piracy measures with the Piracy Antidote.

Mediastalker’s proprietary anti-piracy solution helps you keep your content yours. The language agonistic platform helps block illegal live streams while real-time analytics and visual reporting help you gauge ROI benefits rapidly after implementation. The solution empowers you to protect your revenues and your customers from being scammed by pirates by giving you full control over all the content that goes through your network.

The solution is designed with independent machine learning models. with an AI engine at the core. The customisable solution adapts to your business requirements and facilitates IP management across multiple devices and smart displays. Learn more about securing your revenues from our experts.