Clampdown on TV 'Dodgy Boxes'

Am I the only one thinking this is a very small operation which did not earn the guilty much money?
£500,000 over 5 years is £100,000 per year for two people is £50,000 per person per annum.

To me it is small potatoes for an illegal operation.

The problem for Sky and the PL is there are 100's of 1000's of IP addresses streaming all the live games.

Everybody who has an internet connection has access to them if they know the IP address of the stream.

If the authorities kill off 50% of them, thousands more will start streaming.

Whack a mole.

I'm not sure what control they had over tape's.

They could be bought anywhere and double deck tape recorders were everywhere.

Sky had a good system for a while I suppose with cards and set top boxes but that ship has sailed.

I do agree that they have lost complete control at this point.

Whack a mole as somebody said.

A controlling factor was that the tapes were physical media. They also depended on the distribution system of the rights holder/record companies. Pirating the content at scale would also involve an investment in the hardware (tape recorders rather than just dual tape decks) and a supply of tapes. The investment for pirating video tapes was even higher and the cost of the video tapes were higher.

There was a Europe-wide (and US/CA) business in pirating satellite TV before Sky. It involved pirate descramblers. Parts-wise, it was possible to build one for about £20 and they could retail for over £100. Some of the European channels were very popular because the showed porn movies twice a week. But they were limited to the service and if the broadcaster implemented a countermeasure, they either had to be repaired or junked. With Sky and the pirate smartcards, the cost of the first cards was around £5 and they sold for up to £250. Sky's system provider also implemented frequent countermeasures. It was a major business. Eventually, the business model of piracy changed with the smartcards becoming more complex, key players being taken out by legal action and, most importantly, the monetisation angle being hit so that the creditcard providers wouldn't provide services to websites selling pirate smartcards. Sky also had an efficient counter-piracy operation. The major limiting factor was that the smartcards were physical and Sky decoders and STBs were needed. Cardsharing was a temporary solution and formed the basis of the first generation dodgyboxes. The reality was that Sky and its system provider were aware of the hack since 1989 and even patented some measures to make it difficult to function. (Encrypting the data on the card to decoder link and also "marrying" a smartcard to a decoder.) Sky did not lose complete control over its systems until streaming. And even more importantly. Sky and other broadcasters have no control over the equipment necessary to use a dodgybox streaming network.

Streaming is a loss of control for the broadcaster. It has a vulnerability in that it relies on "legitimate" subscriptions. The major difference between streaming and the previous pirate systems is that the distribution channel (the Internet) is no longer physical. There is also a bigger problem for the broadcasters in that there is an alternative monetisation scheme (digital currency) to creditcards. The broadcasters will probably increase their "Know Your Customer" procedures on new subscribers to limit iffy subscriptions.

Piracy at scale is a business. Streaming has changed the economics of piracy. That's what all the media coverage has missed. Even RTE's piece on dodgyboxes concentrated more on the end-user side of things with an academic explaining why people use these devices. I don't think that it explored the economics of piracy. It is worse than whack a mole.

With pirate smartcards, there were key players as reverse-engineering the official smartcard was expensive. With streaming, the costs are much lower and instead of a few key players, broadcasters have multiple small players. This means that the effect of any dodgybox network being shut down is very limited.

its not just sky money. The international rights bring in more.

I know that it is, we’re not in the UK though, usually one 3pm match gets shown on Premier Sports.

You’re just saying basic information that everyone knows, no actual discussion, I’m not sure why?

Hopefully Sky's bubble bursts. They've ripped people off for long enough.

They had big financial trouble a few years ago.

The people at F1 have decided that they can make more money by selling the UK and Ireland rights up front to Sky rather than having to sell individual $85 packages to fans in the UK and Ireland.

Is that greed or good business?

I had a look and they don't sell the $85 option in Germany or Italy either.

Big F1 markets all of them, selling year long all acces subs for $85 would be giving it away in their eyes.

I'm looking at getting a new device for a second streaming subscription for the house.

I could just grab another Amazon FiteStick but I see a Roku Streaming Stick in Currys for the same price as their Amazon stick.

Is there any reason to get the Roku over the Amazon?

Contributing to total anarchy 😄

What do foreign companies provide?

Money.

There must be 100 countries in the world paying sky for their feed. Definitely covering a lot of costs selling the world most popular soccer league around the world.

Then they have the coverage sponsored and they sell advertising.

After all that they take a fair whack from its customers.

Kodi's your friend, hadn't used it in years thought it was obsolete but tried it out again recently still works quite well with the right addons

Sky earn around 500million from selling to other tv companies around the world. Not all soccer but don't underestimate the amount they're charging. Music, books and movies are perfect examples. The composer gets some rights, the publisher owns recording, publishing etc. sky aren't passing the rights to the world's most popular league on as a service. It's part of their business model.