The LFP, the Professional Football League, has just recorded a great victory against IPTV and pirate streaming sites. Thanks to a court decision rendered by the Paris Court, the LFP obtained the blocking by French ISPs of access to these illegal services. A first in France.
It’s the end of an era. The LFP, the Professional Football League, has just won a important victory against IPTV and pirate streaming sites. Indeed, it has been several years now that the organization has sought to put an end to these alternatives which make it possible to benefit from the retransmissions of L1 and L2 matches to the detriment of the official broadcasters of the two competitions.
This court decision, rendered on March 17 by the Paris court, therefore provides the blocking by French ISPs of access to services provided by IPTV boxes and by pirate streaming sites : “On the basis of article L. 333-10 of the Sports Code, the court also ordered the blocking of streaming sites broadcasting without authorization the Ligue 1 Uber Eats and Ligue 2 BKT championships”.
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The LFP wins a symbolic victory against pirate sites
She continues: “This very important decision will allow ARCOM to request as soon as possible the blocking of mirror sites and sites not yet identified at the stage of the referral and the decision rendered”. Unsurprisingly, the LFP welcomes the court decision and says it was “urgent” than the public authorities are positioning themselves to offer effective protection to professional football competitions vs “the serious and repeated attacks to which they are subject”. She adds that this decision is an essential step in the fight against piracy initiated in particular by the audiovisual law passed in October 2021.
As a reminder, the BeIN Sports channel also recently obtained the blocking of IPTV pirate sites. Here again, it was a court decision by the Paris court which authorized the blocking of several sites illegally broadcasting sports matches. According to the details given by the channel, this measure concerns about twenty sites, whose names have been kept secret. This decision, rendered in January 2022, fell well for BeIN Sports. The pay channel at the time broadcast the CAN, the African Cup of Nations, “one of the most watched competitions in the world and historically very pirated” according to her.
