The fight against piracy is changing its objective. As direct download pages become less and less popular as they are quickly blocked in Europe and other countries, users are choosing to use pirated IPTV services to watch football matches without having to pay a subscription (or at least, pay less).
Some of these hacked services can be as successful as a legal department; That same week, the arrest of those responsible for a pirate IPTV service which had more than 14,000 users and which generated revenues of more than 5 million dollars in less than ten years was announced.
However, most acts of piracy are much smaller in scale; In fact, in many cases, these “hacker organizations” are nothing more than individuals with the knowledge to access or create these illegal services and who attempt to profit from them. This is the case of a curious decision handed down this week in Liverpool, where a 41 year old man He was convicted of selling devices modified to access pirated channels.
Concretely, the manager proposed Amazon Fire TV devices, which he purchased in bulk and modified by installing applications configured to automatically connect to a pirate server. These “charged” devices offered access to TV channels like Sky or TNT Sports, including sporting events like football matches, movies and TV series.
We’re not talking about a piracy “big fish” or anything like that; Although the number of customers who contracted the pirate service was not revealed, the convict obtained 130,000 pounds “over several years”, indicating that he did not have many customers. The lightness of the sentence, which doesn’t even incur a fine nor monetary compensation to the rights holders “for the personal situation of the accused”, indicates that it was not a large-scale operation.
In fact, the convicted person will not even have to go to prison, after receiving a two-year suspended prison sentence; even if he will not be spared 150 hours of forced labor. This is very different from the almost one million euro fine imposed in Europe for the sale of IPTV devices.
But that’s precisely why this case has attracted so much attention: because the priority of the organization that filed the complaint, FACT, has been “sent a clear message” rather than deal a major blow to piracy. The message is clear: selling devices modified to display pirated content is illegal, regardless of the scale of the crime.
And the fact is that the convict did not have a sales network like other pirate services; Instead, he himself took care of offer the product in WhatsApp and Facebook groups, sometimes even through direct contact in person. Although it may seem innocent, a “tip” shared among friends to watch football cheaply, this sentence shows that this is not the case.
