Radio Times caught up in Premier League's piracy fight

[Acorn Newsbot]

As part of its on-going efforts to curb internet piracy, the English Premier League (the body responsible for overseeing football matches in the highest tier of the English League) has successfully won a court case demanding that internet service providers block access to the First Row Sports website. However, a technical issue has also prevented people from accessing legitimate sites such as the Radio Times.

To protect licence holders who have paid many millions of pounds for the right to show live football, the English Premier League (EPL) has taken High Court action against the First Row Sports website for linking to other sites that stream illegal footage of live football games. However, an administrative oversight has blocked much more than just live football streams.

The problem is all down to IP addresses – the unique address that is used by computers to pass information between themselves. Similar to the way in which every house on a street has its own unique address, so too does each website. But, just as some houses are split into individual flats, some web servers also “host” more than one website at a time. And it would appear that First Row Sports and the Radio Times websites share the same IP address. As a result, blocking access to one also prevents access to the other.

Hosting and streaming live Premier League football is illegal under UK law, where such content is classified as intellectual property. Intellectual property protects businesses against having their industrial property or copyright-protected materials stolen. Because those people streaming football from countries abroad do not have a licence agreement in place with the EPL, they are effectively stealing their intellectual property. People who access these illegal streams could also be prosecuted for copyright theft by the EPL itself.

Spotting a fake streaming website
There are some easy ways to tell if the website you are trying to view live streams from is legal or not, with some more obvious than others.

Who provides the site?
By far the easiest way to tell if the site you are trying to watch football on is legal or not is to determine who owns it. There are currently only three companies licensed to show live EPL football in the UK – ESPN, BT Sport and Sky Sports. Furthermore, only BT Sport and Sky Sports stream content through their websites or mobile apps.

Do I have a subscription?
If you are not a paid subscriber to BT Sport or Sky Sports, you cannot legally access EPL streams. Access to both services requires a valid, paid subscription, although BT Sport does provide “free” access to broadband account holders.

The rule of thumb should always be that if access to EPL live streams is being provided free of charge, the service is probably illegal.

The commentary is in a foreign language
Usually, illegally streamed EPL games come from abroad, so unless you pick one being broadcast in the USA, the chances are that you will not be able to understand. Illegal EPL streams are often routed from Scandinavia or China, along with localised commentary. You will also find that the pre-match or half-time adverts show prices in foreign currencies.

If the commentary is not in UK English, the stream is illegal.

The picture is awful
Streaming sites recompress video, or even broadcast what is seen on the pirate’s TV screen via webcam. As a result, pictures are fuzzy and indistinct, especially when the players are moving quickly. You may also find that pictures break up, stutter or stop all together at times.

The legal streams from BT Sport and Sky Sports are sometimes subject to similar playback issues when your computer cannot download video quickly enough, or your Wi-Fi signal is weak. However, when the stream is working properly, the picture should be clean and sharp, and the commentary should be easy to hear and understand.

There are lots of pop-up adverts
Pirate streams rely heavily on advertising to fund their service, and they often use the most annoying online advertising methods available. The stream is often obscured by banner ads, for example, which require you to wait 30 seconds before they can be closed, and you may find a collection of other web browser windows with advertising pop up from time to time. This advertising is often for porn websites or other “adult” services.

Sky and BT may employ banner ads on parts of their own streaming websites, but they never obscure the program being watched. Similarly, neither uses pop-up or pop-under adverts at any point throughout their websites. Any sign of obtrusive advertising is another indication that the website being used is illegal.

What about the Radio Times?
Unfortunately for the Radio Times and the other affected sites, the EPL, the High Court and the ISPs responsible for putting the block in place have all acted legally. As things stand, the sites that have been blocked in error will remain blocked until a proper solution can be developed to allow legitimate web traffic to pass, but keep First Row Sports out of action.

The matter now requires the Premier League and the BBC (owners of the Radio Times website) to thrash out an agreeable compromise to present to the courts and Internet Service Providers. As yet, there is no sign of a resolution, so TV fans will need to find alternative sources of viewing information in the meantime.






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