‘Please don’t log on to tvants,com and watch our major exciting games live for free’.
There’s an interesting story on the New York Times recently about stream piracy which is where someone manages to get a stream from a major sports event pirated online live for free. The strange part is the fact that they practically tell you exactly how to get a pirated stream while some involved in the business end of sports talk about it being a threat.
In short, many major sports organizations are talking about how stream piracy is currently embryonic and not a major threat yet, but could be in the future. The story goes on to say how intellectual property officials complain how tvants.com is one of the biggest websites to get such feeds. The question is, if there were those that are worried about this sort of thing, why tell people on one of the largest news outlets in the entire United States where to get the pirated streams in the first place? No doubt there are alternatives out there as well to the site.
The good news in all of this is the fact that if stream piracy sharply rises, we have the very people who are most likely wanting to stop it to thank because they instructed everyone in the first place.
Sports, when it comes to p2p, has generally gotten off easy with only highlights off of sports broadcasters highlight reels appearing on video sites like YouTube. Still, the sports industry has capitalized off of the fact that the business is run off of the live broadcasting instead of something that has a set length and is quite viewable over and over again. Once a game ends, it’s over. Pirated live streaming could very well change a lot of this. Not everything can be received through a generic BitTorrent site.
Note to MLB officials – if you don’t want someone getting your games for free, don’t leave instructions with your plea.
Tags: piracy, sports, streaming, tv
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