Premier League to Block Streaming Sites

BlueLlama · June 21, 2013

Bah

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23004880

The Premier League is to request a court order forcing internet service providers to block a popular football streaming website before the next season.

The League wants ISPs to cut off access to FrontRow1.eu, which operates from Sweden.

The BBC understands none of the ISPs plans to challenge the court order.

If successful, the action will be the first non-music-related site block in the UK.

The Premier League's move follows a precedent set by the BPI music industry body, which has been successful in having several piracy websites blocked in the UK, most notably the Pirate Bay.

In those cases, ISPs have stood firm and insisted they would only take action if ordered to do so by the courts.

The UK's major ISPs each received a letter from the Premier League outlining a possible court order, and were given a deadline of Friday to signal any intent to challenge the action.

When approached by the BBC, none of the ISPs would comment specifically on the Premier League's planned action, but all reiterated that blocking of sites would not be done voluntarily.
'Conflicts of interest'

The situation raises additional issues for BT, as from next season it will be a major distributor of Premier League football through its new sports TV channels.

BT has paid £246m for rights to show Premier League football, while Sky paid £760m for its portion of the coverage.

Sky's ISP operation has historically been seen as taking a more sympathetic stance with copyright holders requesting the blocking of sites, whereas BT has in the past taken such battles to court on behalf of the ISP industry as a whole.

Jim Killock, of the Open Rights Group, said he worried that conflicted interests might lead to the blocking process becoming less transparent.

"All of the major ISPs now have differing degrees of conflicts of interest," he told the BBC.

"Sky, BT, Virgin and TalkTalk all supply televisions services now, so we have to expect that there will be more reluctance to be as transparent as they have been in the past."

Mr Killock also expressed concern that as the process for granting court orders gets quicker, it may lead to sites being wrongly blocked out.

"It's possible that very legitimate services will at some point be attacked by one of these orders.

"Our main concern here is that these orders should be considered slowly, and they should be subject to much more public review."

FirstRow1.eu did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.

Understandable I suppose due to the amount of money being paid in TV rights but how much money is directly lost?

To SKY etc loads which does not bother me at all. I doubt the clubs themselves suffer at all - how many times have you actually gone"You know what I'll watch a stream instead of going to the game"?

I choose to pay for Sky. I have drawn the line at BT and ESPN as the I do not think it is worth the extra money. I will watch streams of those games that Sky do not have and I can not attend.

I guess this will cost the PL lots in legal fees and as they shut one down another will reopen.

Thoughts?

Del · June 21, 2013

Is it just first row?

NOT ARSED

Muggins · June 21, 2013

I don't think football clubs can control the Internet. With browsers like Tor, Freenet etc, I bet you get HD streams of everything. People would start switching over.

BlueLlama · June 21, 2013

Del said:
Is it just first row?

NOT ARSED

For now mate but if they are sucessful they will go after the other main sites. Doubt they can shut them all down though

RFUS · June 21, 2013

There will be mirrors, don't fret.

toffeestillidie · June 21, 2013

Del said:
Is it just first row?

NOT ARSED

Classic Streisand Effect here. I didn't know first row existed, but now I have another streaming site to add to my already extensive list of options.

michaelh1990 · June 21, 2013

piratebay isnt blocked

Simon Smith · June 21, 2013

As soon as they close one another will take it's place.
I think I can count on one hand the number of times that I have not been able to get a "live" feed of a game in the last 2 or 3 years
FSI is usually my first port of call on a match day to check what games they have.

icburns · June 21, 2013

RadioFriendlyUnitShifter said:
There will be mirrors, don't fret.

Taking measures against piracy, only incenses and encourages them, really.

Tubey · June 21, 2013

michaelh1990 said:
piratebay isnt blocked

It actually is, but it's so easy to get around it's ridiculous.

They just create proxies, child's play really.

AndyZ · June 21, 2013

So it sounds like only ISP's in the UK will be blocking FirstRow?

Marco Materazzi · June 21, 2013

They think they can control what I do on the internet hey? (btw I don't use streams) we'll see about that....

Deloodid · June 21, 2013

Is it true in America this has happened with the poker sites?

riddick · June 21, 2013

I live in the states and just dropped cable completely do I'm going to be relying on finding streams of the nbcsports one they have. showing every single game live either on tv or on the web? fn brilliant.