Uk Court Case To Ban Streaming Sports

[uk_martin 1,606]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23004880

 

OK, it's football for now, and a start is being made targeting another site to the one used most of the time for speedway links...but are we seeing the writing appearing on the wall?

 

How long before a site like soccer-live.pl becomes an obvious target for blocking in the UK? And if they did get blocked, would anyone else from another country posting content from that site onto (say) BSF be putting BSF into jeopardy for circumventing the banning order?

 

Minefield approaching folks...careful where you step!

[MattK 3,447]

In this time of social media, it seems rather pointless blocking access to one site, when another can be up and running in a matter of minutes.

 

Just like the authorities have singularly failed to reduce the popularity of P2P sharing, I can't see how they can possibly keep a lid on streaming sites.

[Deano 1,318]

Surely technology could just locate and send fines to the individuals using the sites, if the law was changed. It is still a form of piracy.

[pawel115 251]

For some of us overseas streaming is the only way to watch speedway if I could I would get sky sports or polish sport tv channels but they are not available here bummer if they try to block it.

[Ghostwalker 1,859]

http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-23004880

 

OK, it's football for now, and a start is being made targeting another site to the one used most of the time for speedway links...but are we seeing the writing appearing on the wall?

 

How long before a site like soccer-live.pl becomes an obvious target for blocking in the UK? And if they did get blocked, would anyone else from another country posting content from that site onto (say) BSF be putting BSF into jeopardy for circumventing the banning order?

 

Minefield approaching folks...careful where you step!

 

There are ways to work around it.

[brandonbee48 1,194]

http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-23004880

 

OK, it's football for now, and a start is being made targeting another site to the one used most of the time for speedway links...but are we seeing the writing appearing on the wall?

 

How long before a site like soccer-live.pl becomes an obvious target for blocking in the UK? And if they did get blocked, would anyone else from another country posting content from that site onto (say) BSF be putting BSF into jeopardy for circumventing the banning order?

 

Minefield approaching folks...careful where you step!

 

Like Pawel, without streams, speedway doesn't exist for me here in the USA. I think you are being a little alarmist here for two reasons. Firstly, as others have said, there are always ways around any potential clampdown. Secondly, and this is a sad reality, we speedway supporters are too few in number for anyone to worry about. The counters on the streams usually show 4 to 500 people viewing at best. Which in TV audience terms is below measuring. For the cricket and football i can see the audience size causing them to try a clampdown, but it's usually futile. I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it my friend. Alan.

[manchesterpaul 447]

This has been discussed heavily and covering all angles many times in the General section so it might have got more attention if it had been placed in there?

 

I am fortunate enough on both geographic and monetary grounds to be able to subscribe to every satellite channel there is but that still leaves some Man U matches uncovered. However, i've never missed a match a single for many seasons, despite that, i've never heard of the streaming channel referred to. Which is an indication of how hard it will be to block streams.

 

Of course there are many ways around a simple block. I agree with Alan that on face value of viewers speedway doesn't raise enough alarms to get tv companies to seek action, however, where we would lose our speedway is because the sites that stream our sport also do the football. But currently we do have workarounds available and i'm more upset about the innocent victims of blocking ISP's and peer-to-peer sites that have many genuine legal uses.

Edited June 23, 2013 by manchesterpaul

[uk_martin 1,606]

Like Pawel, without streams, speedway doesn't exist for me here in the USA. I think you are being a little alarmist here for two reasons. Firstly, as others have said, there are always ways around any potential clampdown. Secondly, and this is a sad reality, we speedway supporters are too few in number for anyone to worry about. The counters on the streams usually show 4 to 500 people viewing at best. Which in TV audience terms is below measuring. For the cricket and football i can see the audience size causing them to try a clampdown, but it's usually futile. I wouldn't lose too much sleep over it my friend. Alan.

Not sure everyone has got the gist of what is going on here. It won't be the streams that will be affected, so anyone outside of the UK will be unaffected by this. What the situation here is, is that the sites that index the streams, like the one that is mentioned, and behind it will follow the likes of www.crickfree.tv etc are the ones that will be banned. Think of it. Ban one indexing site, and all the streams get affected. Far better than going after the streamers themselves. Somewhere along the way, www.soccer-live.pl will be dragged into the equation, as it too is an indexer of these streams. Whether you think that the speedway audience is too small to be significant is immaterial. The site indexes all sorts of sports including football, so that will be what makes it a target. The loss of the links to the speedway streams will be a by-product.

 

And do you think that they can't make it work? Well, the Newsbin and Pirate Bay sites have effectively been banned now, and they were significant players in the pirate market.

[michaelcroucher 30]

They cant ban all streaming as some companies have licences to show streaming. I stream around my house and if I wanted to I could put this onto a website and stream to others. I cant see how they can stop me.

[pandorum 1,259]

If they have as much success banning streamers as they did banning The Pirate Bay then I would not worry too much about it

 

And do you think that they can't make it work? Well, the Pirate Bay sites have effectively been banned now, and they were significant players in the pirate market.

And still are.

TPB was off line in the UK for less than a week.

Edited June 24, 2013 by pandorum

[brandonbee48 1,194]

Not sure everyone has got the gist of what is going on here. It won't be the streams that will be affected, so anyone outside of the UK will be unaffected by this. What the situation here is, is that the sites that index the streams, like the one that is mentioned, and behind it will follow the likes of www.crickfree.tv etc are the ones that will be banned. Think of it. Ban one indexing site, and all the streams get affected. Far better than going after the streamers themselves. Somewhere along the way, www.soccer-live.pl will be dragged into the equation, as it too is an indexer of these streams. Whether you think that the speedway audience is too small to be significant is immaterial. The site indexes all sorts of sports including football, so that will be what makes it a target. The loss of the links to the speedway streams will be a by-product.

 

And do you think that they can't make it work? Well, the Newsbin and Pirate Bay sites have effectively been banned now, and they were significant players in the pirate market.

 

Whilst i see your point about them going after the hosting site, trust me ( and my 18 year old tech-savvy son ) another one will pop up a few hours later. According to him it is very easy and inexpensive to set up a streaming site- which is presumably why there are so many of them. My satellite TV package here in the USA gives me access to more football and rugby matches than i have time to watch and the irony that we get more Premier League football matches here live than you do in the UK. If only there was the slightest interest in showing speedway, but there isn't. The technology genie is out of the bottle and let's hope that more providers follow the lead of Denmark's Kanal Sport channel and give us "official" streams. I think i'll still be watching Sweden on Tuesdays and Poland on Sundays for a long time to come. Regards. Alan.

[iris123 20,997]

The technology genie is out of the bottle and let's hope that more providers follow the lead of Denmark's Kanal Sport channel and give us "official" streams.

The whole thing relies on a company that will film the sport and that will compensate the clubs enough for a drop in attendance.I saw Holsted were partly blaming "live tv" for a loss of 500 on their gate last week.Weather was also blamed.But we have seen it in England as well.Ok the Elite league might get a decent bit of money,but i doubt very much that any danish club is compensated for a couple of hundred off their crowd.Could be the start of the end in Denmark unless a better solution is found,regardless of what happens to streamers.

[uk_martin 1,606]

Whilst i see your point about them going after the hosting site, ...

 

Sorry but I think you've missed the point. Nobody is "going after" the hosts or the streamers. You can have all the video streams that you want. What is happening is that the sites that INDEX all the streams, and make the streams only a click away from the users, THEY are the sites being targeted.

 

Think of it like this...everyone can have a telephone...but if the telephone directories were suddenly gone, how would you know what number to dial...see what I mean?

 

And it's only a block on these sited in the UK, in the same way as Pirate Bay has been banned in the UK. Anyone viewing these Indexing sites in other countries will be OK to carry on as normal...'til those other countries follow suit one day.

[brandonbee48 1,194]

"Think of it like this...everyone can have a telephone...but if the telephone directories were suddenly gone, how would you know what number to dial...see what I mean?"

I don't know anyone, of any age, who still uses a telephone directory. Even my wife's 80 year old mother googles 'hometown plumbers." Anyway, we've had our little airing and i'm looking forward to streamed Elitserien tomorrow. Regards. Alan.

[manchesterpaul 447]

Same here don't know anyone who uses a telephone directory these days or is able to read one without using a giant magnifying glass or soon be needing a microscope! lol.

 

Unless you have absolute zero ability to make the most minimal use of the internet not having a third party provide you with an index isn't going to affect you much at all. You don't even need a proxy to search for geographically restricted sites, there are numerous ways. At the end of the day it might be a good thing for some people as it will keep them away from sites that exist solely for malicious purposes and whose content is merely 'lifted' tv listings or streaming sites listings.