Difference between revisions of "Illegal Sports Streams"
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==Popular Streaming Sites== | ==Popular Streaming Sites== | ||
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[[File:VIPRow.png|400 px|thumb| Homepage of VIPRow's website]] | [[File:VIPRow.png|400 px|thumb| Homepage of VIPRow's website]] | ||
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| − | + | On the internet, there is a wide variety of illegal streaming sites available to consumers. Larger sites often have a wide range of sports, while others sites' focus is more niche. With all of these different sites at the fingertips of internet users, someone looking to illegally stream their favorite sporting event for free will most likely be able to do so. For example, if someone wants to watch a specific sport, like soccer, there is a site called Steam2Watch whose content consists of various soccer matches. There are also sites like VIPRow that stream many different sports, including football/soccer, UFC, WWE, boxing, tennis, golf, American football, basketball, baseball, ice hockey, rugby, and much more. <ref> Ray, Goddy. “10 Best Free Sports Streaming Sites That Actually Work.” Surfshark, 11 Dec. 2020, surfshark.com/blog/10-best-free-sports-streaming-sites.</ref> | |
| + | Many of the popular illegal streaming sites gain their acclaim by word of mouth. This can be as simple as exchanging information with friend about where to find a stream. Additionally, on the popular social media site Reddit, there are communities called subreddits where people list links that others can use to stream different sporting events. Examples of subreddits people might go to if they want to stream a sporting event are NHL streams, NBA streams, and NFL streams. Some of the streaming sites that frequently pop up on these subreddits are Buffstreams, StreamEast, Grandma Streams, and Crack Streams. From a legal standpoint, Reddit can allow these links to illegal streaming sites to be posted because the platform gives users the freedom to post whatever they want. The legal responsibility then falls on individual users for posting illegal content. In recent years however, Reddit has removed subreddits, like NBA streams, due to increases in Digital Millennium Copyright Act notices. <ref> “Here’s Why Reddit Banned NBAStreams, the Subreddit That Showed Free Live NBA Games.” Sporting News, 2 Nov. 2019, www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/reddit-nbastreams-subreddit-free-live-nba-games/qkz5z8oaw2az1wae03hlf39ts. </ref> | ||
==How Popular are Illegal Sports Streams== | ==How Popular are Illegal Sports Streams== | ||
[[File:Illegal Streams.jpeg|thumb]] | [[File:Illegal Streams.jpeg|thumb]] | ||
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| − | + | The increased ease technologically of creating illegal sports streams has been met with an increase in the percentage of people who take advantage of these streams. A 2020 study conducted by Ampere Analysis found that 51% of all sports fans regularly watch their preferred sports content on pirated sources. Even more concerning for the sports industry is that only 16% of the study's participants claimed that they have never watched sports using an illegal streaming service. This study yielded results with high confidence seeing as the sample size included over 6,000 sports fans from over ten different countries. <ref> Carp, Sam. “Study: 51% of Sports Fans Watch Pirate Streams despite 89% Owning Subscriptions.” SportsPro, 4 June 2020, www.sportspromedia.com/news/live-sport-piracy-service-pay-tv-ott-platform-subscription-study. </ref> This study indicates that the issue of illegal sports streaming extends far beyond just one country. The problem has grown into a global nightmare for many of the world's top sports leagues, including the NFL, NBA, and English Premier League. | |
| − | + | Available data allows for further analysis of who utilizes illegal sports streams, specifically in terms of age distribution. According to a research study conducted by Infront Lab, “the lower the viewer's age, the more likely he or she is to opt for a pirated broadcast.” <ref name = ctech> Daskal, Ouriel. “How to Solve the Problem of Piracy in Sports Broadcasts?” CTECH - Www.calcalistech.com, 18 Feb. 2021, www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3894473,00.html. </ref> This statement is supported by the fact that 54% of millennials watch sports through illegal streaming services. Furthermore, 77% of people over the age of 56 watch sports legally on television, and this figure drops to 57% for people between the ages of 40 and 56. This figure again drops to 35% for people below the age of 40. As seen by these figures from this study, younger people are less willing to pay for sports content on their television since there are now free alternatives for those who want to watch sports. | |
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| + | The same Infront Lab study also provides insights into which sports are illegally streamed the most. According to the study, soccer is the most pirated sport in the world. This is likely because soccer is also the most popular sport in the world. Moreover, it may be difficult for international viewers to find legal streams, making illegal streaming the easiest option for these users. Of all the illegal sports streaming online, about 27.4% is soccer, 25.5% is basketball, 13% is mixed sporting events, 10.5% is tennis, and 8.5% is motor sports. <ref name = ctech/> While there is a wide variety of sports that are illegally streamed, basketball and soccer make up about 50% of all pirated sports streams. | ||
==Why Do Illegal Streaming Websites Exist== | ==Why Do Illegal Streaming Websites Exist== | ||
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=Why Illegal Streaming is so Difficult to Stop= | =Why Illegal Streaming is so Difficult to Stop= | ||
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Major sports leagues and companies such as the NBA and ESPN have been fighting an uphill battle to combat illegal sports streams because there are so many variables in play. First of all there thousands of different websites that you can illegally stream sports from, making it very difficult to shut them all down. And even if you are able to shut one down, viewers can just jump to the next until the original stream is back up and running under a different identity. Another reason these major corporations are facing a difficult challenge is because of the professionalization of the industry in illegal streams. Streamers and pirates have become so technologically advanced and specialized in what they do, making them a difficult opponent for companies to take down. Finally, there are legislative battles that these sports leagues are facing to shut down pirated streams, especially in the United States. In 2012, there was a proposed bull called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that would have enacted polices to limit the abilities of illegal streams. There were major concerns about restricting Internet freedom, which ultimately led the bill to fizzle out without any real solutions being created. <ref> “SOPA/PIPA: Internet Blacklist Legislation.” Electronic Frontier Foundation, www.eff.org/issues/coica-internet-censorship-and-copyright-bill. </ref> | Major sports leagues and companies such as the NBA and ESPN have been fighting an uphill battle to combat illegal sports streams because there are so many variables in play. First of all there thousands of different websites that you can illegally stream sports from, making it very difficult to shut them all down. And even if you are able to shut one down, viewers can just jump to the next until the original stream is back up and running under a different identity. Another reason these major corporations are facing a difficult challenge is because of the professionalization of the industry in illegal streams. Streamers and pirates have become so technologically advanced and specialized in what they do, making them a difficult opponent for companies to take down. Finally, there are legislative battles that these sports leagues are facing to shut down pirated streams, especially in the United States. In 2012, there was a proposed bull called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that would have enacted polices to limit the abilities of illegal streams. There were major concerns about restricting Internet freedom, which ultimately led the bill to fizzle out without any real solutions being created. <ref> “SOPA/PIPA: Internet Blacklist Legislation.” Electronic Frontier Foundation, www.eff.org/issues/coica-internet-censorship-and-copyright-bill. </ref> | ||
Revision as of 15:04, 8 April 2021
Contents
Background
The Internet has contributed positively to modern society, but that doesn't mean everything on the Internet is good. For example, the illegal streaming of live sporting events has become an extremely pressing issue that many established sports leagues are trying to combat. As the complexity and capabilities of technology grow, it has become increasingly easier for people to stream pirated versions of sporting events and make them freely available to a wider audience. This has cost major sporting organizations billions of dollars in revenue because consumers can watch their beloved sports teams play from random corners of the Internet that allow them to tune in cost-free. There have been many resources developed to combat this problem, but they have found little success. As illegal streaming continues to grow in popularity amongst consumers, it will be interesting to see how this situation continues to evolve.
Popular Streaming Sites
On the internet, there is a wide variety of illegal streaming sites available to consumers. Larger sites often have a wide range of sports, while others sites' focus is more niche. With all of these different sites at the fingertips of internet users, someone looking to illegally stream their favorite sporting event for free will most likely be able to do so. For example, if someone wants to watch a specific sport, like soccer, there is a site called Steam2Watch whose content consists of various soccer matches. There are also sites like VIPRow that stream many different sports, including football/soccer, UFC, WWE, boxing, tennis, golf, American football, basketball, baseball, ice hockey, rugby, and much more. [1]
Many of the popular illegal streaming sites gain their acclaim by word of mouth. This can be as simple as exchanging information with friend about where to find a stream. Additionally, on the popular social media site Reddit, there are communities called subreddits where people list links that others can use to stream different sporting events. Examples of subreddits people might go to if they want to stream a sporting event are NHL streams, NBA streams, and NFL streams. Some of the streaming sites that frequently pop up on these subreddits are Buffstreams, StreamEast, Grandma Streams, and Crack Streams. From a legal standpoint, Reddit can allow these links to illegal streaming sites to be posted because the platform gives users the freedom to post whatever they want. The legal responsibility then falls on individual users for posting illegal content. In recent years however, Reddit has removed subreddits, like NBA streams, due to increases in Digital Millennium Copyright Act notices. [2]
How Popular are Illegal Sports Streams
The increased ease technologically of creating illegal sports streams has been met with an increase in the percentage of people who take advantage of these streams. A 2020 study conducted by Ampere Analysis found that 51% of all sports fans regularly watch their preferred sports content on pirated sources. Even more concerning for the sports industry is that only 16% of the study's participants claimed that they have never watched sports using an illegal streaming service. This study yielded results with high confidence seeing as the sample size included over 6,000 sports fans from over ten different countries. [3] This study indicates that the issue of illegal sports streaming extends far beyond just one country. The problem has grown into a global nightmare for many of the world's top sports leagues, including the NFL, NBA, and English Premier League.
Available data allows for further analysis of who utilizes illegal sports streams, specifically in terms of age distribution. According to a research study conducted by Infront Lab, “the lower the viewer's age, the more likely he or she is to opt for a pirated broadcast.” [4] This statement is supported by the fact that 54% of millennials watch sports through illegal streaming services. Furthermore, 77% of people over the age of 56 watch sports legally on television, and this figure drops to 57% for people between the ages of 40 and 56. This figure again drops to 35% for people below the age of 40. As seen by these figures from this study, younger people are less willing to pay for sports content on their television since there are now free alternatives for those who want to watch sports.
The same Infront Lab study also provides insights into which sports are illegally streamed the most. According to the study, soccer is the most pirated sport in the world. This is likely because soccer is also the most popular sport in the world. Moreover, it may be difficult for international viewers to find legal streams, making illegal streaming the easiest option for these users. Of all the illegal sports streaming online, about 27.4% is soccer, 25.5% is basketball, 13% is mixed sporting events, 10.5% is tennis, and 8.5% is motor sports. [4] While there is a wide variety of sports that are illegally streamed, basketball and soccer make up about 50% of all pirated sports streams.
Why Do Illegal Streaming Websites Exist
Like almost everything in this world, money is the number one motivator for a lot of people. Even though most of the illegal sports streams that can be found on the Internet are free to the consumer, these streams can generate a ton of money for their creators. There are two main sources of revenue that these streams can generate. The first is from advertisements that are directly on the website themselves. For anyone who has used illegal streaming before, they are all too familiar with the cluster of advertisements and pop ups that come up just when loading the website. The other form of revenue is advertisements within the streaming video. During a stream, advertisements might pop up every now and then or come up at a stopping point in the sports game. Nevertheless, all of the revenue centers around advertisements. [5] According the The Independent, “Digital pirates can make hundreds of millions of pounds of profits per year by monetising stolen content.” [6] Because there is so much money involved with illegal streaming, this service does not appear to be going anywhere. It has become too easy for tech experts to make a lot of money by creating these illegal streams. Something drastic would need to change before this practice were to ever fizzle away.
Why Illegal Streaming is so Difficult to Stop
Major sports leagues and companies such as the NBA and ESPN have been fighting an uphill battle to combat illegal sports streams because there are so many variables in play. First of all there thousands of different websites that you can illegally stream sports from, making it very difficult to shut them all down. And even if you are able to shut one down, viewers can just jump to the next until the original stream is back up and running under a different identity. Another reason these major corporations are facing a difficult challenge is because of the professionalization of the industry in illegal streams. Streamers and pirates have become so technologically advanced and specialized in what they do, making them a difficult opponent for companies to take down. Finally, there are legislative battles that these sports leagues are facing to shut down pirated streams, especially in the United States. In 2012, there was a proposed bull called the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that would have enacted polices to limit the abilities of illegal streams. There were major concerns about restricting Internet freedom, which ultimately led the bill to fizzle out without any real solutions being created. [7]
The UFC's Attempts to Combat Illegal Streaming
With much of the UFC’s revenue coming from pay-per-view sales, which is essentially paying to be able to watch the fight from home, the idea that people can now watch it without paying is a huge problem for them. The president of the UFC Dana White has been threatening illegal pirates throughout the last several months, claiming that they were listening to their phone and watching their house and if they went live, they would be arrested. He has also said that in after doing this for the first 2 PPV events of 2021, their “target” elected to not go live with the pirated link.[8]
So Dana White’s plan is to target one of these each time they have an event until they can scare everyone away from streaming his events illegally. His fight may get easier with the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act (PLSA). This allows for him to prosecute illegal streamers easier and has already been used by White to shut down one of the largest streamers of pirated UFC events, Rocco Walker. White’s threats caused Walker to remove his streaming website.[9]
The Impact of Illegal Streaming
The exact impact that illegal streaming has on sports is difficult to pinpoint, but it is significant nonetheless. For example, one of the most exciting boxing matches of the year, Tyson Fury vs. Deontay Wilder, had 325 thousand people in The United States pay to watch the fight legally. However, there was an estimated 1.9 million people who used pirated streams in order to watch the fight, causing ESPN and Fox Sports, the channels that sold the PPV, to lose millions of dollars, as the fight cost $75 to purchase. [10] Out of all the sports that can be streamed illegally, the UFC is estimated to take the biggest hit because all of their events are pay per view, meaning that customers have to purchase the rights to watch each fight rather than just being able to watch the event on their cable packages.
NBA president Adam Silver has also taken note of the drastic decrease in television revenue even though demand for NBA games has increased. In an interview about the matter he says, “We know from every bit of research we have, from all the social media platforms, there’s more interest in our product than the ratings reflect.” [10] In order to address this problem, it is important to understand the root of the issue. In order to get more people to pay for streaming services legally, you have to understand the customers point of view. They can either stream for free and sacrifice some quality and lag time or pay for a high quality service. Leagues around the world are starting to understand this and identify ways to make legal streaming more readily available and at cheaper costs. They also need to advertise that these legal steams will provide better user experiences, higher quality entertainment, and less complications without annoying advertisements, buffering, and lag time. For example, the National Football League (NFL) has introduced new and free streaming services via Twitter and Twitch in order to increase legal viewership. [11] Although tactics like this have seen some success, there is a lot more work to be done. It will be interesting to see how major sports corporations continue to fight illegal streaming in the immediate and distant future. One thing remains for sure though: illegal streaming does not appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.
References
O'Halloran, Joseph. “Anti-Piracy Tech Can Drive $28BN Goldmine for Sports.” Rapid TV News Main News, 15 Mar. 2021, www.rapidtvnews.com/2021031560098/anti-piracy-tech-can-drive-28bn-goldmine-for-sports.html#axzz6q3nCTIXY.- ↑ Ray, Goddy. “10 Best Free Sports Streaming Sites That Actually Work.” Surfshark, 11 Dec. 2020, surfshark.com/blog/10-best-free-sports-streaming-sites.
- ↑ “Here’s Why Reddit Banned NBAStreams, the Subreddit That Showed Free Live NBA Games.” Sporting News, 2 Nov. 2019, www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/reddit-nbastreams-subreddit-free-live-nba-games/qkz5z8oaw2az1wae03hlf39ts.
- ↑ Carp, Sam. “Study: 51% of Sports Fans Watch Pirate Streams despite 89% Owning Subscriptions.” SportsPro, 4 June 2020, www.sportspromedia.com/news/live-sport-piracy-service-pay-tv-ott-platform-subscription-study.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Daskal, Ouriel. “How to Solve the Problem of Piracy in Sports Broadcasts?” CTECH - Www.calcalistech.com, 18 Feb. 2021, www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3894473,00.html.
- ↑ Joyner, Hunter. “Streaming Sites: Are They Illegal? How Do They Make Money?” Zippia, 9 Jan. 2018, www.zippia.com/advice/streaming-sites-are-they-illegal-how-do-they-make-money/.
- ↑ Sulleyman, Aatif. “Something Horrific Is Happening When You Illegally Stream TV Shows. And It's Making These People a Lot of Money.” The Independent, Independent Digital News and Media, 19 Sept. 2017, www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/piracy-streaming-illegal-feeds-how-criminals-make-money-a7954026.html.
- ↑ “SOPA/PIPA: Internet Blacklist Legislation.” Electronic Frontier Foundation, www.eff.org/issues/coica-internet-censorship-and-copyright-bill.
- ↑ Fowlkes, Ben. “How Dana White and the UFC Plan to Crack down on Illegal Streamers.” The Athletic, 4 Mar. 2021, theathletic.com/2425630/2021/03/04/how-dana-white-and-the-ufc-plan-to-crack-down-on-illegal-streamers/#.
- ↑ Hewitt, Madison. “Closing the Streaming Loophole: How the Protecting Lawful Streaming Act Allows Dana White to Punish Illegal UFC Streamers | Villanova University.” Villanova University, 21 Mar. 2021, www1.villanova.edu/villanova/law/academics/sportslaw/commentary/mslj_blog/2021/ClosingtheStreamingLoophole.html.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Bushnell, Henry. “Inside the Complex World of Illegal Sports Streaming.” Yahoo!, Yahoo!, 27 Mar. 2019, www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/inside-the-complex-world-of-illegal-sports-streaming-040816430.html.
- ↑ Soper, Taylor. “Twitter Says Live Streaming of NFL Games Went 'Incredibly Well'; No Word on Deal for next Season.” GeekWire, 3 Jan. 2017, www.geekwire.com/2017/twitter-says-live-streaming-nfl-games-went-incredibly-well-no-word-deal-next-season/.
