Although it is true that there is no week in which an anti-piracy association such as the MPA knocks down a server that offers illegal content, the truth is that pirate IPTVs do not stop appearing like a hydra: you cut off one head and two appear. For this reason LaLiga has become very serious to fight against the broadcasting of its matches illegally.
And it is that, between 2019 and 2020, piracy fell by 7% in our country, but it continues to cause millionaire losses. So you get the idea, Last year, 5,239 million illegal accesses were detected in Spain, either through web pages or pirate IPTV servers to access content worth 30,892 million euros. This translates into a loss of 2,416 million euros for the Spanish economy according to the Observatory of Piracy and Digital Content Consumption Habits 2020. And In the case of LaLiga matches, their pirated content represents a loss of 71 million in 2021.
And of course, Javier Tebas has decided to take action on the matter. Already, during the 2019/2020 LaLiga season, more than a million live videos available on YouTube were detected and closed, nearly 400,000 videos on social networks, more than 500 applications to access pirate IPTV services, and they have even been closed nearly 40,000 web pages that offered this content.
LaLiga focuses on fighting pirate ITPVs
Just like report from LaLiga, «focuses its human and technical efforts on IPTVs and Cardsharing servers. Both systems of audiovisual piracy have become the most damaging for the owners of audiovisual rights. LaLiga has reported more than 15,800 pirate IPTV subscriptions reported to Google Search Engine, and 67.2% of them deindexed. More than 10,800 reported profiles that were advertised in Facebook groups have also been detected, with more than 91% being eliminated. As for Cardsharing services, 5,779 have been reported and 5,772 have been removed.”
The worst of all is that the reports that LaLiga has received could not be more devastating: 82% of users of pirated IPTV and other services that allow them to watch football matches for free would pay to watch them if they had no other option.
“Some of our anti-piracy tools are so sophisticated that they immediately detect if someone is watching an illegal video on Twitter” said Miguel Ángel Leal, general director of LaLiga Tech, a company in charge of standing up to pirate IPTV servers and other platforms to watch football matches for free.
It may interest you: Football will be increasingly difficult to watch through pirate IPTV services
In order to fight against these illegal services, especially pirate websites and IPTV, the League has a subsidiary, LaLiga Tech, LaLiga Content Protection, in which fifty experts work.
It should be remembered that behind these illegal services “there is no Robin Hood who offers free content altruistically or young people who cannot afford the content: behind it are organizations that profit, and a lot, from the work of creators and eliminate jobs. They also do it through a black market outside taxes and therefore harm the whole of society in general.”, according to LaLiga.
LaLiga Content Protection bets on BlackHole to eliminate pirated IPTV
This LaLiga anti-piracy division is responsible for monitoring and deleting all illegal content available on social networks, messaging services… “Some of our anti-piracy tools are so sophisticated that they quickly detect if someone is watching an illegal video on Twitter, de-index web pages, or prevent access to sites where illegal set-top boxes are being sold.”, explains LaLiga.
And for this reason, LaLiga Content Protection has software that uses artificial intelligence to monitor content in real time and detect and eliminate any illegal access, be it audiovisual piracy through pirate IPTV or other ways of watching games for free. And beware, it is also capable of detecting counterfeit brands.
For this they use fuoco, a tool capable of monitoring and reporting the sale of illegal merchandising. A system capable of detecting fake products and that can verify that the Spanish operators have blocked the domains that host these counterfeit product stores.
Once the software detects some type of infraction, the team of experts analyzes it and takes the measures they see fit.“The range of solutions is varied and allows hacking websites, platforms, applications and networks to be attacked from different sides”, adds the general manager of LaLiga Tech.
For example, if it’s a YouTube video, they use Content ID, a system that allows YouTube content creators to detect any illegal content that was protected by copyright. This system is responsible for collating and analyzing the content using its huge database so that it can be claimed both manually and automatically.
On the other hand, LaLiga’s anti-piracy division is creating its own tools to fight this scourge. As explained Emilio Fernández del Castillo, Director of Operations for LaLiga Content Protection, “andThese programs offer us exhaustive information through geolocation and maps. Thanks to the accurate and detailed photo you provide, we can quickly identify most pirated websites, social media accounts and apps.” In addition, he adds that “The development of new, more innovative tools and software, as well as the involvement of a greater number of people, are the key for data to continue to evolve positively”,
The first system used by LaLiga was Marauder, a tool capable of creating a map in real time indicating where the pirate IPTV servers, web pages or applications that are offering content illegally are located.
The next step was to bet on Lumière, a tool given to the Ministry of Culture and that reveals who is the owner of pirated content, in addition to revealing the infrastructure of the site where said illegal content is hosted in order to make the corresponding complaint. The problem is that sometimes they arrive too late.
“Right now we immediately detect that a football game, which lasts 90 minutes, is being pirated, since we reported it and justice acts, that website or server has already found another place to host pirated content. Hopefully we will soon have this legal tool to help us win the game against audiovisual piracy”, concludes Fernández del Castillo.
But, the great success of LaLiga has come with BlackHole, a system that also uses geolocation maps to extract all the information about pirate IPTV and other services through satellite connection. In this way, it is able to create a list of servers and domains where matches are offered illegally.
Y the results that LaLiga is achieving with BlackHole they are high, shutting down a good number of pirate IPTV servers in record time. And watch out, NEKO will arrive very shortly. As reported by Emilio Fernández del Castillo “During the next season we will also be able to count on NEKO, a new tool that will allow manual reporting on social networks in a faster and more efficient way.”. In addition, he adds that “With this tool, the number of complaints made per minute will increase considerably during the next season”.
As you may have seen, LaLiga has a few tools with which to stand up to piracy. And beware, that companies like Dorna Sports, the Jupiler Pro-League of Belgium or Sky Sports in Mexico have been interested in these solutions to fight against pirate IPTV and other illegal services.
