FA chiefs declare war on website's illegal broadcasts
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SNATCH OF THE DAY
FA chiefs declare war on website's illegal broadcasts
FURIOUS FA and TV chiefs have declared war on an American website which is screening live top-flight English matches for FREE.
The Premier League are threatening legal action against San Francisco-based video- streaming portal Justin.tv
Thousands of fans are logging on to the site, co-founded by 24-year-old Yale graduate Justin Kan, to avoid paying subscriptions to British TV companies Sky and Setanta, which hold the exclusive UK rights to show live Premier League matches.
Last Wednesday, only Arsenal’s incredible 4-4 draw with Tottenham was broadcast live in England. Yet, by simply logging on to www.justin.tv fans could watch Manchester United’s 2-0 triumph over West Ham, Chelsea’s 3-0 win at Hull, Fulham’s 2-0 win over Wigan and the Emirates eight-goal thriller — all LIVE.
Abuse
Not surprisingly, the United game was most viewed, with 167,138 hits, while the Arsenal-Spurs showdown boasted 148,063 viewers.
Premier League spokesman Dan Johnson insisted: “We are in contact with this site and their lawyers and are seeking to prevent any further abuse of our rights.
“The streaming of live Premier League matches without permission is not only illegal, but also unfair on fans who have paid to go to matches or subscribed to Sky and Setanta.
“Their support means clubs can buy and develop the best players possible and invest in bigger, better and safer grounds.” England’s 4-1 World Cup qualifying win over Croatia in September was also shown live on Justin.tv — despite the match being broadcast exclusively by Setanta Sports.
Six separate streams were available, with commentary coming from Setanta’s Jon Champion. The most popular feed saw a peak of 30,819 viewers.
The FA last night confirmed their lawyers will also be sending a legal letter to Justin.tv bosses. An FA spokesman said: “We are aware that websites around the world are seeking to exploit the popularity of English football.
“We take any infringements of our broadcasting rights very seriously and we will be looking at this particular website very carefully. “We always take action to protect our rights and will do so again in this case.”
Justin.tv hit the world stage when Kan strapped a camera to his head and started streaming every moment of his life over the web. The site, launched in March last year, quickly evolved and now boasts thousands of diverse lifestyle channels, from the breeding of boa constrictors to news from Pakistan.
But the live football streams are by far the most popular area of the site among UK users, especially on a Saturday afternoon when games are unavailable to viewers in this country. And the concept couldn’t be simpler. Anyone with legal live access of a game can, via a webcam pointed at their TV screen, upload their feed to Justin.tv for the world to watch — illegally.
For instance, last Sunday’s Premier League clash between Chelsea and Liverpool was available live on no fewer than EIGHT different channels on Justin.tv. And the best quality feed came through one called p2pstation.net, which had uploaded a feed from a user watching South African sports channel Super Sport. The English commentary came from ex-Spurs boss David Pleat and Sky’s Alan Parry.
The channel had no fewer than 574,000 hits with a peak of 19,081 viewers watching at any given time. British TV companies signed a £2.6BILLION three-year deal with the Premier League in August 2006 to screen football (both live and highlight packages) until 2010.
Piracy
Sky splashed out £1.3bn and Setanta £392m to secure exclusive live UK rights, while the BBC coughed up £172m and Sky, together with BT, another £84m for British highlights. And the Premier League also raked in a further £625m by selling overseas rights but Justin.tv did not buy these.
Setanta Sports marketing director Timothy Ryan said: “As rights holders we believe what Justin.tv is doing amounts to piracy. It contravenes the owners’ rights which has implications for us. “We are working closely with the Premier League and other rights holders to clamp down on piracy such as that represented by Justin.tv.”
Since its launch, the website has added one million users and has racked up more than half a million hours of video — or 62 YEARS — on the site. Justin.tv’s numbers are stunning: over the last year, over 90,000 channels have been created, more than 24,000 events broadcast and more than 61,000 video clips uploaded from Justin.tv to YouTube.
Justin.tv’s own promotional website wording reads: “Justin.tv is building a destination site for broadcasting and watching live video online while chatting with friends. “The company’s mission is to enable viewers and broadcasters to interact and exchange ideas in real time through chat and live video.”
And their mission, in their own words, reads: “In the past, live broadcasting was only available to large media corporations who were willing to spend millions of dollars.
Today, Justin.tv has democratised live video by shrinking all of the functionality of an expensive TV satellite trunk into a laptop or desktop computer.”
Scandal
Justin.tv chief executive officer Michel Seibel refused to comment on the scandal, saying only: “I haven’t got the time to talk to you and you can’t talk to anyone else about this matter.”
It’s not the first time Justin.tv has been in trouble for flouting British law. The Scottish FA successfully took action against the website after it showed archived Celtic games in breach of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Illegal broadcasts in pubs and clubs are already reported to cost Sky, Setanta and the football authorities at least £3m a year in lost revenue. Manchester United and England star Wayne Rooney’s uncle John Morrey, 56, was fined £4,000 last October for showing Sky Sports matches illegally at his Liverpool pub, the Old Stanley Arms.
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the FA is powerless against the internet.
Anonymous is a legion.
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
These are places where I watch my matches =(
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Simple, just LOWER the subscription fees! Much more people will watch legally if say it cost like $20 a month to watch EPL matches 'live' every week.
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want earn money also use brains la stupid FA...
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Originally posted by haoguanghg:
Simple, just LOWER the subscription fees! Much more people will watch legally if say it cost like $20 a month to watch EPL matches 'live' every week.
now is $25...if it's back to $15 i'm sure there'll be truckloads of subscribers.
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or
print advertisement onto the green fields for more exposure
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Originally posted by Y_Shun:
or
print advertisement onto the green fields for more exposure
=.=""
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this is something like singapore's cigarettes problem. the price of local ones so high, of course ppl turn to contraband mah. SCV nowadays so expensive, of course turn to free ones lah.