Clampdown on TV 'Dodgy Boxes'

So where are you based and/or where is the sub from?

the used to offer subscriptions to separate channels in the UK, might still not sure.

Yeah they launched that in the UK a few years ago, but I'm struggling to find if it's still in place.

It was never an option in Ireland, because there is just not enough of a market to offer just cricket, or F1 or golf.

The vast majority of Irish sports subs are there for the EPL.

And some people can't afford it so their only option is IPTV and you can't blame them for finding a way to watch their favourite sport somewhere they can afford.

If you want to have the customers you have to factor in how much people can or are willing to pay.

I know that .

I'm just pointing out that the market for EPL TV rights has cooled in the last few rounds, and the lower price per game is a reflection of that.

As is the lack of interest from big tech, even though some seem to think they are ready to pounce.

unfortunately the world of finance and share ownership doesnt behave in the long term, as its largely short term gains focused, i.e. quarter to quarter etc, the whole model is a bust

again the main driver of pricing is in fact the overall financialised model, and less to do with customer demands

I'm talking more about what customers demand in the service.

They expect a certain amount of camera angles, a certain quality of instant replay, a certain quality of commentary and analysis, pre game, post game and half time content etc.

If they want cheap then they get a single camera and two lads on commentary, no replays, no pre game, half time or post game.

The kind of thing you get at a Div 1 game on LOI TV.

Even before the 1990s, piracy was a problem in the US and Europe. Some of the analogue systems used in Europe were very easy to hack as they interfered with the synchronisation of the video. There were some digital systems (VideoCipher II and B-MAC (used for horse racing feeds) and Oak ORION).The early version of Sky was nothing like what it became in the late 1980s. The cable TV industry in the UK was also just beginning to develop at the time with the first franchises being awarded.

Murdoch's Sky was also competing with the BBC style British Satellite Broadcasting in the UK market and that used an upgraded version of the VideoCipher II system from the US. That's where the real battle over broadcast rights began with Sky and BSB competing for movie rights in the UK and Ireland. BSB was run by people who thought they were the BBC or RTE. It required different hardware and a SCART connector on the TV which many TVs of the time did not have. Sky's system could easily be hooked up to TVs and VCRs. Sky was run differently and more ruthlessly. Sky took over BSB.

Not many people in Ireland had satellite TV systems back (early 1990s) then as Cablelink dominated the TV market in the cities and even with Astra, satellite systems were expensive. There was a thriving Europe-wide market in pirate descramblers for FilmNet as it used to show hardcore porn a few times a week. When Sky launched on Astra, it was broadcasting its programmes in the clear.

The VideoCrypt system came afterwards. Some of the movies on Sky Movies were available via FilmNet and the pirate descramblers for that channel still worked. It introduced digital audio encryption and that was hacked. FilmNet eventually went to D2-MAC/Eurocrypt. A few years later, the D2-MAC Eurocrypt smartcards were hacked before the Sky VideoCrypt smartcards. There were other hacks before those. To put it in rather stark terms, the pirate smartcards meant that an integrated circuit and a printed circuit board that cost about a fiver could be sold for up to two hundred Pounds. Previously, the components for a pirate descrambler could cost up to twenty Pounds depending on the system and a production line was needed to build and test the descramblers..

Some of the countermeasures by the broadcasters made put pirate descramblers out of action and some were not easy to upgrade. With Sky and the other smartcards, the countermeasures knocked out pirate smartcards but they could often be reprogrammed with a PC and a programming interface. Then the Battery Card which had its own keypad for the upgrade codes for countermeasures hit the market. The user could just enter the new keys (for D2-MAC Eurocrypt channels) on he keypad. And all these descramblers and smartcards were often not illegal outside the country where Sky or the other broadcasters operated.

.There was no Europe-wide legislation and that made things a lot more difficult for the broadcasters. There is stronger EU-wide legislation now and people do get prosecuted. The problem is still the same: no system is unhackable. Once a broadcaster loses control over its decoders, the probability of a successful hack increases.

In the 1990s, there was a lot of discussion in the industry about "closing the loop" with the decoders having some feedback to the broadcaster. That was not feasible in the 1990s Europe. It was feasible with cable TV. It is also feasible with streaming services. Satellite TV remains a bit of an outlier on this.

Unlike the technology journalists, I do not think that there are easy answers. The problem for Sky and other broadcasters is much worse now. They haven't just lost control over their decoders. They have lost control over their content. That is not a problem that better or stronger encryption can fix. It is stuck with trying to take out larger dodgybox networks and fighting piracy by press release.

Regards…jmcc

yup, it causes and forces market monopolisation

Lots of people can't afford lots of things. It doesn't make it okay to go out and steal it.

They are not stealing. They are paying for a product that's available to them at an affordable price. The person supplying the service is stealing it.

Is it illegal to stream something given to you by somebody else. If I set up a camera on my home TV and shared it with somebody are they doing something wrong by watching it?

I asked a question in my post. You never answered it.

If you buy express VPN or similar they don't fully protect. Just like anything else you need to find a better source.

Using a VPN is not necessary to watch IPTV. All you need is to protect your data.