Fantastic news that two facebook groups have been shut down for illegally pirating SPFL football streams.
With luck those that have been illegally collecting money for the onward streaming get sued and taken to task. How much is this costing scottish football clubs ?
Thousands of pounds have been lost by clubs but are the SPFL taking any action ?
It is very easy to find out where streams come from due to the bragging by people in football forums. They can`t help themselves thinking they are big shots.
Of course it is easy to setup a hidden facebook group (as an example) but you still need to publicise it outside and get subscribers. People that set these up know they are doing it illegally so they should have no fear if they actually get punished and season tickets taken away from them. Even a ban from their club.
It`s obvious that when they get caught they ar elooking for teh person that grassed them. Well, in fact the grassing came from the groups themsleves by the bragging and taking `donations` from their own fans.
Setting up hidden facebook groups is different for those setting up streams in other countries and they seem quite easily pick up SPFL matches and broadcast them on sites that should not be trusted. It`s quite easy to find such pirate streams, often they will blatantly post messages on a clubs own facebook page.
Perhaps the betting sites using the new cameras in scottish football grounds is not such a good idea at all as they are repeatedly being pirated. Just check any Kodi box you can buy for £30.
We are not sure that the SPFL had envisaged that this would happen and that so many pirate streams would turn up.
There is big money in advertsising revenue just by a user visiting these not-to-be-trusted pirate streaming sites.
Don`t support thes sites, view from an official site or catch up later.
Hearts have just come out with a statement https://www.heartsfc.co.uk/news/article/hearts-tv-update. Zero tolerance.
Quote from Hearts FC:
It is, therefore, with regret that the club has today taken steps to prohibit an individual from illegally streaming first-team matches online.
Firstly, it goes without saying that the club will not tolerate the illegal streaming of any Hearts match as this is theft of our intellectual property.
Secondly, the practice of illegal streaming and actively encouraging hundreds of people to partake in its viewing on social media is hugely damaging to the club’s income, at a time when it is heavily reliant on maximising all revenue streams in order to survive during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Finally, and most important of all, any individual illegally streaming Hearts games is doing so to the detriment of the thousands of loyal Jambos who support the club as best they can through season ticket purchases, PPV purchases and Hearts TV subscriptions.
We would like to know what they are doing about other clubs thet were affected by this, Hearts lost very little but other clubs lost thousands of pounds.