Shutdown of Sports Piracy Giant a 'Game of Whack-a-Mole': Lawyer
Video piracy costs rights-holders and the media industry $75 billion annually in lost revenues, so steps like the shuttering of massive sports piracy operation Streameast are welcome, Kearney media lawyer Christophe Firth wrote last week. "But it is a game of whack-a-mole and there is every risk of similar piracy hubs quickly filling the gap left by Streameast’s closure."
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The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, an anti-piracy coalition, said that through Streameast's 80 associated domains, it saw more than 1.6 billion visits in the past year, making it the largest pirate live sports streaming operation globally.
Firth said there's a segment of piracy users called the Unwilling, who are consumers who resort to pirate streams because the content isn't made available in their country. "Rights holders and legal broadcasters/streamers have a role to play in moving pirate content users to their offerings by sharpening their go-to-market models."