UK Police Announce Major Crackdown on Illegal Sports Streams

Piracy is a crime, streaming dodgily obtained movies is illegal, etc. etc. – We all know it, and for those of you who do engage in it, don’t expect any judgment from me here. While the online variety of this was once more predominantly focused on music and software downloads, however, over recent years another major ‘market’ has arisen. Namely, pirated sports streams.

Following an official Twitter post from the UK’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit, however, they have announced the launch of a major crackdown specifically targeting this particular medium. Albeit, for those of you who do tend to dip into these sports broadcasts, you probably shouldn’t be worried… Probably.

UK Police Announce Crackdown on Pirated Sports Streams!

Running throughout January (so basically the next two weeks), the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit have announced their intention to start visiting the homes of those they believe are engaged in the mass streaming publication of licensed sporting events. Namely, people who put up illegal streams of football matches, boxing events, etc. for others to ‘tune in’ and watch for free.

Well, presuming you can fight through the ads and pop-ups which typically tend to plague them (so I’m told!).

How will they identify these people? Well, based on the Twitter post, I would presume that they already had. Is this possible though? Yes! Very much so! And likely from their internet activity (such as a monumentally huge level of bandwidth detected by their connection provider when Manchester United just happens to be playing Manchester City).

And I should note, they are specifically looking for individuals who ‘host/broadcast’ these events so the majority of you who merely watch them are probably ‘safe’ here. – Well, you’re still breaking the law, but you know what I mean.

What Do We Think?

Will it work? Probably not. Well, not in any kind of overly disruptive manner. I daresay that while a few people will be arrested, this will be relatively minimal and mostly focused on some well-known key players in this particular piracy field. – It is, I suspect, more of a general warning being sent out to those who do partake in the pirated broadcast of sports channels/events

If you do, however, tune into these streams and find your options a little more limited over the coming weeks, you know (probably) why!

What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!