ISPs compelled to block streaming soccer...

Mr E · 16-07-2019 2:29pm #1

What do people think about the news this morning that ISPs in Ireland will be compelled to block dodgy streams of football games in the Autumn?

Does this set a precedent for other types of dodgy streaming content, or will the ISPs be playing whack-a-mole with the streams?

Court orders block on illegal streaming of English football matches

People who illegally stream live English Premier League football matches will find the service blocked when the season kicks off next month following a court order.

In the Commercial Court on Monday, Football Association Premier League Ltd was granted Ireland’s first ever order compelling internet service providers (ISPs) to block live streaming of matches on computers, set top boxes and other devices

The order is against Eircom/Eir, Sky Ireland, Sky Subscriber Services, Virgin Media Ireland and Vodafone Ireland.

The ISPs were either supportive or neutral over the application, Mr Justice Robert Haughton was told.

Under the order, the content provided by the illegitimate servers or hosts, using streams from legal broadcast outlets, will be targeted in real time for disabling using the latest advances in technology, the court heard. It will be possible to block streams across several platforms and apps “in one blow”, the court also heard.

The internet protocol (IP) addresses of the streaming hosts will be updated at least twice during match time so that the blocking can be enabled, Jonathan Newman SC, for the premier league company said. It will be possible to respond “within minutes” to the illegal streaming, he said.

More on this link:
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/court-orders-block-on-illegal-streaming-of-english-football-matches-1.3957365

Harry Palmr · 16-07-2019 2:32pm

Well (no) good luck with that. My ISP is not on that list which is far from comprehensive, though I realise there are companies who piggy-back on the main players infrastructure.

GarIT · 16-07-2019 2:33pm

It's simply not possible. They can block streams they are made aware of until DNS over HTTPS is implemented in the near future.

There are tens if not hundreds of communities with their own streams of sporting events they won't get them all. And even if they did they can only block websites and streams for another few months before they're not able to anymore.

Peer to peer streaming has been a thing for a while now so they can't simply block one IP address as mentioned above, it would need to be hundreds or thousands for each stream.

Timberrrrrrrr · 16-07-2019 2:33pm

30 seconds setring up a VPN will get you around that.

maximoose · 16-07-2019 2:35pm

So, with so many private IPTV services for football - how does the PL identify them all?

duffman13 · 16-07-2019 2:38pm

It's going to be next to impossible to stop, these announcements are the best the premier league can do to deter people but the price is enough to make people risk it.

GarIT · 16-07-2019 2:40pm

duffman13 wrote: »

It's going to be next to impossible to stop, these announcements are the best the premier league can do to deter people but the price is enough to make people risk it.

There is no risk really

Until I hear of a good few hundred people getting fines for watching streams or a few getting prison sentences for watching streams I'll be streaming.

horgan_p · 16-07-2019 2:41pm

I guess they have to be seen to be doing something.

I'd imagine that the last thing they want their engineer tied up with is blocking some poor soul watching a soccer match.

They'll do the same as they did with the torrent sites, DNS based blocking. They can save face then by saying that they have implemented a change. And everyone else can get on with watching their soccer.

pixelburp · 16-07-2019 2:50pm

A similar order came down a few years ago to block a number of well-known, high profile Torrenting sites - and made absolutely no difference by dint of the bazillion mirrors said sites use to get around blockage. Of course the ISPs can claim they complied with the courts, did their due diligence and everyone who knows little can pretend the problem is solved.

I'd say the best these companies can hope for is that the publicity of the announcement might deter hobbyist and casual users of streaming sites, and otherwise shake the trees enough to get a few customers to sign up. This is finger-in-dyke territory, bar a Chinese Firewall scenario.

davo2001 · 16-07-2019 2:52pm

I know it's not EPL but I watch around 2-3 rugby games a month on the TV so the same thing applies, some on sky sports some on Eir.

For me to do this it costs the following:

Sky TV package: €40pm
Sky sports addon: €40pm
Eir sports addon: €28pm
Multiroon sub: €15

Total cost: €123 per month.

Obviously I don't pay this, I pay €40 for the normal sky package (just cause the wife like the "ease of use") and then €10pm for an IPTV sub which literally gives me all the channels I could want and in full HD, I can also watch them on multiple devices.

How's about the EPL and sky and whomever else look at there price guide and then come back to us with a proper decent price.

It's literally cheaper for me to buy a ticket and go to the 2-3 matches a month then pay Skys inflated BS price.

duffman13 · 16-07-2019 2:54pm

GarIT wrote: »

There is no risk really

Until I hear of a good few hundred people getting fines for watching streams or a few getting prison sentences for watching streams I'll be streaming.

Sorry I meant risk of a stream going down mid game, fines and that lark are miles away at this point

maximoose · 16-07-2019 2:55pm

duffman13 wrote: »

Sorry I meant risk of a stream going down mid game

Genuinely hasn't happened to me in years

Unearthly · 16-07-2019 2:57pm

The future is streaming. Sky BT EIR etc probably know the game is up and this is a last ditch attempt.

The UK and Ireland package completely mugs off the customer in terms of price and choice and now there is a way to circumvent this.

jimmycrackcorm · 16-07-2019 3:45pm

I dropped sky sports because only the PL matches were on it and I just thought it was crazy that we should be asked to pay for subscriptions to both sky and BT.

Streaming is their failure becoming greedy and making access to games too expensive.

Phileas Frog · 16-07-2019 3:47pm

GarIT wrote: »

It's simply not possible. They can block streams they are made aware of until DNS over HTTPS is implemented in the near future.

Or they can just block IPs

GarIT · 16-07-2019 4:12pm

Phileas Frog wrote: »

Or they can just block IPs

I was under the impression that if both the DNS lookup and the site were using HTTPS that wouldn't be possible.

I haven't actually investigated it but if they can just block IP addresses why were UK ISPs reporting to the media that DNS over HTTPS will stop any sort of porn block from being possible.

Clareman · 16-07-2019 4:53pm

In the past broadcasters used to do their bit to stop illegal sharing of their channels as this had an impact on them, in some cases broadcasters would actively hack their opposition to put them out of business now that it's the copyright holder stuff is getting a lot more interesting. The Premier League is making over 2 billion a year in TV rights, a lot of this is from overseas, you can be sure Sky weren't happy with people getting illegal steams of cheaper broadcasters so they put something in the contract that the Premier League will need to do what they can to stop illegal steaming.

In my opinion, they won't stop people who actively by-pass subscription based TV but they'll probably put off a lot of people who just use the like of Mobdro to watch matches on.

Agent Coulson · 16-07-2019 4:57pm

My ISP blocks me from using TPB

delito · 11-01-2020 10:05pm

If you have a device not capable of installing a VPN, such as smart TV or mag box then buy a router thats compatible with DD-WRT or any Asus router with an OpenVPN client.

A budget router that's good enough to run IPTV is a tp link archer c7 from Argos for 99.00 with DDWRT flashed on to it you will get about 12mb speeds, or spend 170+ for a dual or qual core if you want to exceed 50mb.

https://wiki.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/TP_Link_Archer_C7

jmcc · 12-01-2020 9:56am

GarIT wrote: »

I was under the impression that if both the DNS lookup and the site were using HTTPS that wouldn't be possible.

I haven't actually investigated it but if they can just block IP addresses why were UK ISPs reporting to the media that DNS over HTTPS will stop any sort of porn block from being possible.

DNS over HTTPS would mean that the DNS queries are encrypted and go to a specific DNS server. The normal DNS model does not generally use encryption and the queries generally got to the ISP's DNS servers where certain lookups can be made to intentionally fail.

A streaming site that's streaming live video would require high bandwidth for multiple viewers (not really a problem these days) and from the ISP side, the traffic spikes would generally coincide with various matches. So if an ISP sees a spike in users all connecting to the same IPs at match time with a streaming kind of data profile for the traffic, there's a relatively good chance that it is a streaming server. The problem is that the legality of the ISP blocking such IPs might be unclear.

Regards...jmcc

ISPs compelled to block streaming soccer...

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