Football Fans Eye World Cup Piracy Options
Written by enigmax on September 16, 2008Last week, football fans in the UK were disappointed after satellite broadcaster Setanta failed to reach a deal with free-to-air terrestrial channels to show England’s World Cup qualifier against Croatia. Of course, availability isn’t something that affects those wishing to view the match via unauthorized sources.
Years ago, football fans (that’s soccer to our US readers) in England were pretty much guaranteed to be able to watch their national team play live. With just a handful of terrestrial channels available, anyone with a TV set could see the matches on BBC or its rival, ITV. Now with satellite subscription channels snapping up the rights to matches, the potential audience is shrinking, from pretty much everyone in the country down to just a few million.
Currently, Irish pay-TV broadcaster Setanta has the rights to broadcast live matches to its 4 million subscribers, of which a maximum of 1.5 million watch the matches, such as England’s World Cup qualifier with Croatia last week. Terrestrial channels, available to most in the UK, have to strike a deal with Setanta to get the match highlights to show to their viewers after the live match has finished. Last week, they failed to reach a deal which meant that football-mad England fans who wanted to view on terrestrial TV were unable to watch their own national team.
In the end, a deal was struck with the ITV network to show match highlights the next day, but by which time everyone knew that England had won 4-1 and although most fans were pleased, all the surprises were ruined. However, those prepared to pirate their favorite sport managed to cut through the satellite/terrestrial split and all the boardroom and financial politics at the click of a mouse.
The majority of the pirates got their England vs Croatia fix from streaming services. Most of them are easy to view with a software client but other streams can be viewed directly in a regular web browser, and there appears to be no shortage to choose from. Ok, the picture quality might not be all that and the commentary might be in Chinese on some streams but since the matches can be heard live on national radio, understandable commentary is accessible, if out of sync.
A much smaller number, around 15,000, downloaded the full match via BitTorrent, which ordinarily would only be available via a subscription to Setanta. Even if a deal had been struck with terrestrial channels, only the highlights would have been available to the masses. But of course, pirates don’t care about subscriptions or the reasons why companies fail to make a deal to enable fans to watch their national team participate in their national sport. They want media and they want it now - and they get it too, either for free via Internet piracy, or at a discount via other less obvious gray-area sources.
The message to media companies is simple - provide wide access to media at a reasonable price and no fuss, and the majority (who can afford it) will be happy to pay. Start aggressively restricting things that people love - like watching football - and then fail to reach agreements to let the fans have even a diluted version in a timely organized fashion, and you’re asking for trouble. Once people start pirating and realize just how much easier, convenient and cheaper it is, it will be hard to get them back, especially once BitTorrent and streaming media devices start to be found in the average living room.
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30 Responses
Ahh yes.. foolish TV broadcasters.. go play with your little politics and kids games..
Im gonna go go pirate.. ahah.. later morons.
What’s wrong with copyright now - the ability to restrict access.
Problem with Setanta is that they screw you. if you want to watch a match, you have to buy a 30 day subscription. however if you want to cancel, you have to give 30 days notice. in other words, you have to pay for 2 months just to watch 1 match.
This seems to contradict itself with the idea of “paying” at the end. To be honest, no matter how cheap the subscription is there still won’t be a huge improvements in viewings.
you cant watch your own team play because some other countries TV mogul bought the rights… how ridiculous is that????
Gotto pay for 60 days to see a match that is only for one day..
And then they call US pirates!
http://www.eZee.se
my local has the foreign satellite feeds.
cant beat watching it in the pub with a pint…
u know this would be really interesting if the software behind swarm player was open to download. With a little bit of money and a hd connection we could stream live in better definition than the terrestrial broadcasters. The tech is there just not open for us yet lol.
@ #3 (Anon), Quick question:
Is it possible to order on say the 4th of a given month and then cancel on the 5th? so that with the 30 day notice you are paying for 31 days instead of more? or do you have to wait till atleast the next calender month before you can cancel?
You can buy matches individually without having to pay for a whole month.
“What’s wrong with copyright now - the ability to restrict access.”
Copyright is, by definition, the ability to restrict access, that’s why we pirates exist xD
What copyright should be… is to protect the ARTIST from commercial piracy.
It is NOT right for you to TAKE someone elses work and try and sell it.
Copyright as it stands, is only to protect the industry. Artists are farmed and consumers are raped.
Except pirates, we choose a different path. We support artists directly and tell the industry to go fuck itself.
Which side are you on?
Well tbh you might as well just get a freeview box and pay to see the match, or just find a decoding site that’ll get you past the codes, or that’s what you used to do anyways
I am 100% for pirating important TV Programs due to the fact the selfish cable companies won’t show you it unless you pay. Although maybe not on the same lines, I’m a huge fan of Kenny Vs Spenny (A Canadian TV Show) from the US. Comedy Central is starting to show SEASON 4, totally skipping the first 3. Not only that, but they’re heavily edited due to the fact US TV is much stricter than Canadian PPV channels. So once again, another boost for pirating. Same thing for Football, too. If the Pats are playing on NFL network, then I’ll just download it the next day.
Watching sports is like watching someone wank. You’re not supposed to watch but do it yourself or rather something better. There are cheaper ways to fall asleep than watching sports, too.
fagball haha..
although i agree with you, you should still apreciate the fact that people should be able to access what they like without stupid copyright restrictions and bs.
Its the same thing with smoking.. i fuckin cant stand all these anti-smoke shit.. and ive never even smoked a cig. Im also not a sports fan, but I can understand why people want it.
I know exactly how those fans feel.
I live in Canada and 95% of the time during the regular season you dont get to see your favuorite hockey team play in the regular season unless you actually live in the same province as that team. Otherwise your SOL unless its the Make-me-laffs.
So i found Sopcast. Its p2p streaming, and i’ve never had to miss a game since. I hope the footie fans discover Sopcast and programs like it. And it doesnt lag & the picture is awesome.
I hate football. But.. millions love it. It makes no sense to me why Setanta would win bids with a crappy 1.5 million viewers. Equate that to their public commercial rival ITV who would probably generate 4-5 times as many viewers. That menas advertisers get a broader audience and more revenue generation.
Is there a downside to pirating live events from pay-to view broadcasters? Well no. If they fail to win bids as a result of piracy, public broadcasters such as the BBC or ITV stand a far better chance of winning the rights to broadcast games live. In the end its the fans who win. If people can view the events freely or record them legaly to watch at a later time there would be less incentive for them to download crappy chinese copies. The fans win, the public broadcasters win, the advertisers win (except if the BBC got the rights) and the only one SOL is the pay-to-view broadcasters who are only ripping you off anyway.
Pirate away, it might actualy do some good.
I totally agree, great post!
NowTors: http://www.nowtors.com
I go to all my clubs home matches and some away matches these days. I followed England home and away for 20 years but now football is too expensive to be going all the time.
Sopcast is perfect for those away games you can’t afford to get to and aren’t on TV.
All it needs is to mass market by having better picture quality and the ability to tie it into a live (normally local) radio broadcast (normally on the net) where you can sync the audio somewhere close to whats on screen.
a good example of market controls creating artificial borders within an otherwise open and free market when confronted by technology which renders copyright laws inoperable
if every satellite user in the country obtained *free = no cost* universal decoders then the market would be truly open. precisely analogous of the current situation with bittorrent and the music industry where you can choose between free digital content (everything is available) and paid value added services
e.g. i pay $100/month for my Sky+ HD and also use bittorrent. i have choice
PS. when i was a kid the thought of spending $100/month for your tv was ludicrous … today we are spending more per head, give more money to the media cartels, than at any other time in history. but we have lost the rights to see our national soccer team free on tv
http://www.h33t.com where filesharing is a contact sport
Only hom0s3xualz downloads illegally.
It is definitely true that copyright is a market control. It is much better to have free markets - and loosen copyright restrictions. Specifically, legalize all non-profit activities except for plagiarism, and limit the copyright term to 15 years (but eternal plagiarism protection), and allow anyone to engage in for-profit non-plagiarizing activities as long as they pay royalty (so no more “obtaining rights” - they just sell it and pay the creator). Only this way will there be a truly free market.
Roze
http://www.28chan.org/apstdt/
@21
I hope that’s not true. If it was the human race would cease to exist. I don’t know a single teenager in this generation who hasn’t at least downloaded a one song illegally.
:) The apocalypse is coming
Yes if you are the BPI, MPAA, RIAA
and Brein.
http://12chan.org is better
Stupid Setanta..Such an idoit Broadcaster..
I have been on this p2p tv thing for a few season’s. Its great. I regularly watch all sorts on there live. from box office boxing, UFC, (shown in uk day after) villa away match’s (not shown live on uk tv), films, random channel’s from round the world. Surely this way of viewing tv has to catch on. I can take my laptop fishing, set it up and watch away. Unless you a pikey your sat dish stays at home, you cant do it otherwise. The site i use most is myp2p.eu there is also .us site both have every sport under the sun on there.
The way forward !
“Years ago, football fans (that’s soccer to our US readers) ”
don’t forget Canada! It’s called soccer there, too. :)
Yeah
Nice article. I watch most of my sports online, especially now that I’m studying in China.
More sports around the world should take a cue from Major League Baseball. For $100 you can get an unlimited year subscription to streaming video of all games (with blackout restrictions) and audio of all games (no restrictions). It’s a great bargain, and I’m glad to pay the money to watch games I’d otherwise miss out on.
Of course, getting football torrents is nice, too. Still, I only use torrents for things I can’t otherwise get online for cheap, such as footy.
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