World Cup Pirated Live Streaming

World Cup live streaming: 4 million football fans turn to YouTube and Facebook to watch matches online illegally.

11:12 12 July 2018

Thousands of pirated live streams have been appearing on a number of social media websites as England and Croatia vie for their place in the finals of the 2018 Fifa World Cup. Statistics show that millions of football fans have turned to YouTube, Facebook, Periscope and Twitch, making it the most illegally live-streamed sporting event in history.

 

Irdeto, a piracy prevention firm, has noted that many fans are staying away from nefarious websites and are turning to mainstream sites instead.

 

Giant technology companies, including Facebook and Amazon, are investing heavily to acquire the rights of major sporting events. Recently, Facebook has secured exclusive rights to broadcast live Premier League matches in Southeast Asia next year for £200million.  The company has also unveiled a technology called Rights Manager to fight piracy but cyber criminals are still finding ways to avoid getting detected.

 

A spokesperson for Facebook described its efforts as a "work in progress" as it continues to improve the feature.

 

"We devote significant resources to address copyright issues for live content on Facebook," the spokesperson said. "We've been growing our global team that processes these reports across time zones and continue to invest in our copyright tools."