Swedish IPTV Crackdown Tested as Users Seek Workarounds

Users of pirate IPTV services in Sweden are actively trying to circumvent new ISP blockades ordered by Stockholm's Patent and Market Court. The court sided with rightsholders Viaplay, TV4, and Discovery, requiring Telenor and other ISPs to block subscriber access to pirate IPTV providers. This triggered a cat and mouse game is likely to intensify the call for broader blocking measures.

nordicOriginally the home of The Pirate Bay, Sweden has a long and well documented history when it comes to online piracy.

As in other countries, however, many Swedish pirates have made the switch from relatively cumbersome torrents to on-demand streaming. That includes pirate IPTV services.

According to recent estimates, some 700,000 Swedish households have access to illegal IPTV services. These subscriptions are sold at a very low cost, making them substantially cheaper than the official plans offered by local streaming services such as Viaplay.

Sweden’s IPTV Crackdown
Viaplay and other rightsholders have grown increasingly worried about this trend and these concerns have reached lawmakers too. Earlier this year, Swedish Minister of Culture, Parisa Liljestrand, said that the authorities started looking into a possible ban on viewing pirate IPTV streams.

Punishing pirate IPTV viewers en masse is a novel concept that may be difficult to roll out in practice. Legally, it may be possible, as the Court of Justice of the European Union previously ruled that consumption of pirate streams is illegal. However, since there is no public information available on who these subscribers are, tracking them down may prove challenging.

Meanwhile, rightsholders were working on a more direct approach. Earlier this year, rightsholders including Viaplay, TV4, and Discovery took legal action in court to order local ISP Telenor to block access to the popular local IPTV service NordicOne, or N1 for short.

Court Issues Broad IPTV Blocking Order
After reviewing the complaint, the Patent and Market Court in Stockholm ordered Telenor to immediately block its subscribers’ access to the NordicOne IPTV service. Failure to comply carries a potential fine of 500,000 SEK ($50,000 USD).

Skånska Dagbladet reports that the court deemed the blocking order appropriate, effective, and proportional. Telenor must block a list of specific domains associated with NordicOne, including ‘clientsportals.com’, ‘n1ip.tv’, ‘ptv.is’, and must also block any future domains used by the service upon notification.

The order against Telenor remains valid for three years and further reports suggest that it doesn’t come in isolation. According to Dagens Media, Tele2 and Tre have been ordered to implement similar blocking measures.

Through these blockades, Viaplay, Discovery and TV4 hope that IPTV subscribers will give up on their pirate habits, switching to official subscriptions instead. While some may indeed give up facing these blockades, others seek workarounds.

Cat and Mouse
Over the past days, Swedes complained bitterly about the blockades through online forums and messaging apps, while searching for workarounds. In the popular Flashback forums, for example, several people share new URLs through which they can regain access.

Others mention other known workarounds, including the use of VPN services and alternative DNS resolvers. The effectiveness of alternative DNS resolvers suggests that the blocking measures are implemented primarily through the ISPs’ DNS servers.

NordiskIPTV, likely a reseller service that was caught up in the blocking action, posted a public message pointing users to new portal URLs. Alternatively, they also mention VPNs as a workaround.

NordiskIPTV message (translated)

nordisk
This cat-and-mouse game is not new; it is illustrative of the responses we have seen to blocking measures over the past fifteen years. The question now is whether Viaplay and the other rightsholders will take action in response.

The court order allows rightsholders to add additional domain names to the blocking order, but VPNs and alternative DNS providers are not covered.

Recently, rightsholders in other countries, including France, have applied for blocking orders against DNS providers such as Google and Cloudflare, and VPN providers have become a target too. Whether we will see the same in Sweden has yet to be seen.

It’s clear, however, that the blocking scope in Europe is gradually expanding. And if it’s up to some rightsholders, even web browsers should be subject to blocking orders.