Authorities Celebrate Victory Against Illegal Streaming
The authorities have celebrated another victory against illegal streaming after closing a popular platform that has been visited more than 123 million times. The website showed big football games, including the Premier League games, Serie A, La Liga, the Bundesliga, and Ligue 1.
The Operation
The location known as Calcio was available in 134 domains and was particularly popular in Italy, which made 80 percent of the traffic of Calcio. However, it was used by people in other countries across Europe and in the USA. The operation was run by a group in Moldova. Those who were behind it agreed to cease Calcio after approaching the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the world’s leading anti-piracy coalition.
Impact of Illegal Streaming
It happens that TV heads warn that illegal streaming costs the industry "hundreds of millions of dollars". When you talk to friends and colleagues, people know that they can get broken fire sticks with prison sticks, and they can access pirated copies of fire sticks. In recent years, there have been a number of raids, arrests, and prisons for operators. The efforts to reduce Calcio were made in coordination with the sports streaming giant DAZN.
Response from Authorities
"The decisive action by ACE and DAZN when removing this website has further affected the well-being of the sports ecosystem," said Ed McCarthy, COO of the DAZN Group. "Dill down illegal operations such as Calcio is of crucial importance for the protection of fans, the protection of jobs, and the preservation of the value and the integrity of live sports." Larissa Knapp, Executive Vice President and Chief Content Protection Officer of the Motion Picture Association (MPA), added: "Piracy reduces the commercial value of a live sports transmission, long before the final whistle, transmitter, sports, and fans harm."
Warning About ‘Jailbreak’ Fire Sticks
What are ‘Jailbreak’ Fire Sticks?
Illegal streaming can be delivered by a series of devices, one of the most common being "jailbreak" fire sticks, which means that third-party media server software has been installed. The most frequently used software is called Kodi. It can grant users access to new functions and apps that the normal version of the device would not allow.
Legality of ‘Jailbreak’ Fire Sticks
It is not legal to use these devices to stream subscription channels for free. It is also illegal to buy or sell these changed devices that are known as "fully loaded"-a term that describes how the software has been changed to enable access to only subscription channels. "These devices are legal if they are legitimate, freely observed to air and content," said the government. "As soon as they are adapted to illegal content, they become illegal, e.g. TV programs, films, and subscription sports channels without paying the corresponding subscriptions."
