Foxtel and Facebook join forces to put an end to the illegal broadcast

DON’T expect to see any more illegal streams of content being live broadcast on Facebook, with Foxtel and the social media platform joining forces to stop piracy. Following the debacle of the Danny Green-Anthony Mundine fight being illegally streamed on Facebook Live, both companies have been developing a new tool to put a stop to the unlawful act.

While Facebook already has software allowing rights owners to track down unauthorised streams of TV shows and movies, Foxtel chief Peter Tonagh said this will be the first time the tools tackle real-time broadcasts.

“We are working on a new tool with Facebook that will allow us to upload a large stream of our events to Facebook headquarters where it can be tracked,” he told The Australian.“If that content is matched on users’ accounts where it’s being streamed without our authorisation then Facebook will alert us and pull it down.”

Foxtel hope the anti-piracy measures will be in place before the next major sporting broadcast.

“Our issue is that there were 22 live streams we identified of that fight. But we know of other cases in other markets where there were several thousand streams.” he said. “This is a major problem and so we are working with Facebook to put a stop to it. We are sure the tool will do what it says, but we are not confident of it working 100 per cent because in this game we have to increasingly play catch-up with the pirates.”

The news comes as Foxtel announced the two men responsible for the broadcast of the Mundine-Green fight earlier this month will avoided legal action because they formally apologised for their role in illegally broadcasting the fight on their respective Facebook pages.

“Rather than taking, we decided to take the opportunity to educate both of them about the significant harm such actions bring to the production of local Australian content, including live sports,” Mr Tonagh said.

“We have given the individuals the opportunity to formally apologise via a public social media post, acknowledging the gravity of the situation, in the hopes that more people will learn that copyright theft is not a victimless crime and something that should be taken very seriously.

“We are pleased that both (Darren) Sharpe and (Brett) Hevers have taken us up on the opportunity and have published an apology and acknowledgment of wrongdoing on their Facebook pages.”

If the matter went to court, both men faced potential fines of up to $60,000 or five years in jail.

Do you think this new tool will stop piracy?