Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

UK ISPs to Block Set-Top Boxes That Illegally Live-Stream Soccer Matches

posted by on Monday March 13 2017, @10:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the time-for-the-penguin-on-top-of-your-television-to-explode dept.

Fnord666 writes:

Kodi set-top boxes that allow football fans to stream live matches without a licence will be blocked by the UK's four biggest ISPs, after the High Court approved a piracy clampdown order.

Sky, BT, TalkTalk, and Virgin Media will all be required to block servers that stream Premier League football games.

"The new block will enable a proportionate and targeted restriction of content that would otherwise have been proliferated to unauthorised websites and IPTV devices," said the Premier League after it secured the court order from Mr Justice Arnold on Wednesday.

BT and Sky fling millions of pounds at footie matches to win exclusive rights to broadcast the games live. Earlier this week, BT Sport secured the exclusive rights to show UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League matches until 2021.

But broadcasters and the Premier League have been fretting about the rise of Kodi set-top boxes, which allow football fans to watch live streams of copyrighted material on their TVs without paying for a subscription.

The High Court granted the order to block the servers that stream the matches via the Kodi boxes under section 97a of the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act.

"We will continue working with ISPs, government, and other sports content producers to protect consumers from illegitimate services that offer no recourse when services are removed, provide no parental controls and, in many instances, are provided by individuals involved in other criminal activity," the Premier League said.

Source: ArsTechnica

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
UK ISPs to Block Set-Top Boxes That Illegally Live-Stream Soccer Matches | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 23 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 2) by gidds on Tuesday March 14 2017, @02:48PM

    by gidds (589) on Tuesday March 14 2017, @02:48PM (#478927)

    I'm pleased to see that the headline, unlike the article, doesn't identify the boxes by one of the bits of software installed on them.  Kodi is a simple, extensible media player.  (Disclaimer: I use it on my Raspberry Pi for playing movies and TV programmes I recorded or ripped myself.  That's my only connection.)

    Calling them 'Kodi boxes' is as misleading as calling them 'Linux boxes'.  Neither Kodi, nor Linux, nor the firmware, nor the processor are related to anything illegal, and have many, many other fully legal uses.

    The Kodi team were sufficiently concerned about this that they put out an official statement [kodi.tv].  (I happened to read it a couple of days ago, which is why it's fresh in my mind.)  A relevant excerpt:

    Team Kodi is officially tired of this. We are tired of new users coming into the forum, asking why the box that “we” sold them was broken. We are tired of this endless campaign by dishonest salesmen to push a single use of Kodi that nobody on the team actually recommends. We are tired of these salesmen lying to users, claiming that pirate streams and pirate boxes are “legal” when they are absolutely not at some level or other. We are tired of being told by companies that they don’t want to work with us, because we are selling pirate boxes. Being removed from an App Store this summer because of the campaigning of others was like a slap in the face. Most of all, we are tired of a thousand different salesmen and Youtubers making money off ruining our name.

    As a result, they "will issue trademark takedown notices anywhere we think the likelihood for confusion is high", and ask people to let them know of anyone trading on the name 'Kodi' or dragging it through the mud.

    OK, rant over!

    As to the real story here, I haven't seen enough details for a fully-informed opinion.  (And I'm not personally affected, as I don't generally use streaming media, and loathe all forms of sport!)  But I'm not sure that, even with a Court Order, this counts as due process, or whether it's as 'proportionate and targeted' as they claim.  And even if so, it's one more step down the road to restriction and oppression.

    (And, once again, I'm glad to be using a small ISP!  Not only is their customer service excellent, but they're not subject to this sort of nonsense.)

    --
    [sig redacted]
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   2