4 Attachment(s)
UFC & MLB Join Pirate IPTV Blocking as Broadcasters Collaborate to Cut Costs
Major sports rightsholders and broadcasters in Canada have selected UK-based site-blocking veterans Friend MTS to carry out all pirate IPTV blocking under a Federal Court injunction obtained during the summer. The fact that NHL, NBA, and Premier League streams will be blocked by major Canadian ISPs was widely reported. Yet, with significantly less fanfare, it appears that the UFC and MLB have also entered the blocking arena.
In June 2022, Canada’s Federal Court handed down a ‘dynamic’ blocking order to prevent live NHL games from being viewed via pirate IPTV streams.
Obtained by companies including Rogers, Bell, The Sports Network, and Groupe TVA, the injunction was the first of its kind in Canada and had flexibility built-in by design. That was only the beginning and just like the UK and other countries in Europe, more applications resulted in more blocking injunctions being granted, each more adaptive than the preceding one.
In April 2024, a new application caught the eye. Led by Bell, Fubo TV, Rogers, and The Sports Network, the rightsholders requested permission to block pirate streams of three different sports; NHL and NBA games, plus matches played in the UK’s Premier League.
Greater Efficiency Through Collaboration
Since obtaining an injunction is a time-consuming and expensive process, the application in April aimed to significantly improve efficiency. Instead of separate proceedings for each sports league’s content and each time new content is broadcast, the applicants bundled everything into a single track process.
An announcement this morning by anti-piracy company Friend MTS confirms that collaboration to increase efficiency in court, also extends to pirate IPTV monitoring and blocking activities under the authority of the injunction.
“Friend MTS, the leading provider of video content security solutions, today reported that numerous video service providers in Canada have uniformly chosen Friend MTS as their partner of choice to prevent piracy with Dynamic Delivery Server Blocking (DDSB),” the announcement reads.
While Friend MTS describes the formation of “an industry-first collaboration” it doesn’t actually name any of the companies involved.
However, it does mention NBA, NHL, and a “nationwide court order to dynamically block access to any servers hosting broadcasters’ pirated content,” which certainly narrows things down.
An additional note, that the collaboration “saves money and time by reducing court application fees and appearances while simultaneously protecting billions of dollars of sports content rights,” leads directly to the following copyright owners or exclusive licensees.
Rogers Media Inc., Rogers Communications, Inc., BCE Inc., Bell Media Inc., CTV Specialty, Television Enterprises, Inc., The Sports Network Inc., Le Reseau des Sports, (RDS) Inc., and Groupe TVA Inc.
The above companies are clearly listed in the April application and the dynamic injunction handed down in July. Interestingly, it appears that the flexibility of the injunction was utilized before the ink even had a chance to dry.
UFC and MLB Enter Pirate IPTV Blocking Arena
On July 9, 2024, the same day the injunction was granted by the Federal Court, the applicants filed a motion to expand the scope of the injunction with additional content owned by other rightsholders.
These received no mention in the injunction but since a provision in the order allows for additional rightsholders to be added, these were somewhat more quietly introduced via amendment.
The addition of UEFA seems to be limited to the coverage of Euro 2024 but in respect of Major League Baseball (MLB) and Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), ongoing protection of events seems logical, and indeed turns out to be the case.
To the extent of our knowledge, the involvement of UFC and MLB hasn’t been widely publicized. However, the details of content to be blocked by Canadian ISPs (Bell Canada, Eastlink, Cogeco, Fido, Rogers, Sasktel, Teksavvy, Telus, Videotron, and Vmedia) appears as a subsequent amendment to Schedule 1 of the order handed down on July 9, 2024.
Confirmation that rightsholders are working together, and that all monitoring and IPTV target acquisition will take place under one roof at Friend MTS, indicates a blocking program capable of expansion without causing too many headaches.
If other countries’ programs are taken as guidance, expansion is almost guaranteed.
