A man has been ordered to pay £45,000 in fines and damages for the illegal distribution of Sky Sports.

It’s the latest in a string of convictions and co-incides with World Intellectual Property Day (April 26).

Waqas Rasheed shared streams from (the then) Sky Sports 1 and Sky Sports 2. These streams were found on IPTVdonations.com, an illegally run IPTV subscription service. He claimed to have “inadvertently” created the streams whilst trying to access Sky content online for free. However, the Judge ruled Rasheed’s apparent lack of intention was not a defence in law.

“This result is an excellent example of just how serious an issue illegal streaming is,” said Kieron Sharp, CEO of the intellectual property protection organisation FACT. “This case in particular highlights that ignorance is not a defence and digital piracy is not a grey area. If you are accessing content for free that you’d usually pay for, or you’re creating the streams online to allow others to do so, you are breaking the law.”

The distribution of content over the Internet has by far outstripped smart card piracy as the most-common form of copyright theft within pay-TV.

It is illegal to stream content that others pay for. Ignorance of the law is not a defence,” said Neil Parkes, Media & Intellectual Property Partner at law firm Foot Anstey.