English Premier League 2012/2013 - Real World Football - FM24/25 Update

The Premier League is to request a court order forcing internet service providers to block a popular football streaming website before the next season.

The League wants ISPs to cut off access to FirstRow1.eu, which operates from Sweden.

The BBC understands none of the ISPs plan to challenge the court order.

If successful, the action will be the first non-music-related site block in the UK.

The Premier League's move follows a precedent set by the BPI music industry body, which has been successful in having several piracy websites blocked in the UK, most notably the Pirate Bay.

In those cases, ISPs have stood firm and insisted they would only take action if ordered to do so by the courts.

The UK's major ISPs each received a letter from the Premier League outlining a possible court order, and were given a deadline of Friday to signal any intent to challenge the action.

When approached by the BBC, none of the ISPs would comment specifically on the Premier League's planned action, but all reiterated that blocking of sites would not be done voluntarily.

'Conflicts of interest'
The situation raises additional issues for BT, as from next season it will be a major distributor of Premier League football through its new sports TV channels.

BT has paid £246m for rights to show Premier League football, while Sky paid £760m for its portion of the coverage.

Sky's ISP operation has historically been seen as taking a more sympathetic stance with copyright holders requesting the blocking of sites, whereas BT has in the past taken such battles to court on behalf of the ISP industry as a whole.

Jim Killock, of the Open Rights Group, said he worried that conflicted interests might lead to the blocking process becoming less transparent.

"All of the major ISPs now have differing degrees of conflicts of interest," he told the BBC.

"Sky, BT, Virgin and TalkTalk all supply televisions services now, so we have to expect that there will be more reluctance to be as transparent as they have been in the past."

Mr Killock also expressed concern that as the process for granting court orders gets quicker, it may lead to sites being wrongly blocked out.

"It's possible that very legitimate services will at some point be attacked by one of these orders.

"Our main concern here is that these orders should be considered slowly, and they should be subject to much more public review."

FirstRow1.eu did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.

Is it just me or are they completely missing the point? Id imagine most people are like me when it comes to watching streams and will always watch the legal way when i can but using streams means you can watch every game for your team rather than just the occasional game.

Ninja

15 years ago

7 years ago

5,341

22 Jun 2013 08:43:29

No.

I mean, I understand what you're saying and most of us here do it but it's obvious why the PL is going after them.

They make a shit ton of money from their business model and these sites do harm that.

For example, if I really wanted to I could sign up to ESPN and BT from next season as well as Sky and watch 90% of United games on TV but I'm content with Sky and streaming those on other channels. I expect that is true for most people as well who will only chose the legal version when it is convenient.

Obtuse

16 years ago

3 years ago

1,338

22 Jun 2013 09:12:13

Fuck harming the EPL. Maybe the shitcunts should give us an option to watch all of our countries games before attacking sites that offer the games to us.

Ninja

15 years ago

7 years ago

5,341

22 Jun 2013 09:15:03

By Obtuse | Permalink | On 22 June 2013 - 10:12 AM

Fuck harming the EPL. Maybe the shitcunts should give us an option to watch all of our countries games before attacking sites that offer the games to us.

I didn't say I had any moral objection to it did I?

Just that it's a fucking business and they're going to go after things that are illegally harming their business.

I don't see how you can struggle to understand that concept.

Obtuse

16 years ago

3 years ago

1,338

22 Jun 2013 09:22:40

By Ninja | Permalink | On 22 June 2013 - 10:15 AM

I didn't say I had any moral objection to it did I?

Just that it's a fucking business and they're going to go after things that are illegally harming their business.

I don't see how you can struggle to understand that concept.

Sorry I wasn;t directing it at yu but rather ranting against them.

I understand the greed all too well but ultimately they should stop being racist and letting us see our games somehow rather than letting other countries do so

Fantastic

14 years ago

8 months ago

2,496

Banned

22 Jun 2013 09:43:27

By Obtuse | Permalink | On 22 June 2013 - 10:12 AM

Fuck harming the EPL. Maybe the shitcunts should give us an option to watch all of our countries games before attacking sites that offer the games to us.

The system was put in place to protect stadium attendances, but being able to watch every match televised doesn't seem to hurt any other country. I paid £70 to be able to watch every single NBA match via League Pass and I don't see why the Premier League can't do what the NBA does, which means if a television rights holder has it available then it is blacked out, but if it is not being televised then it's available on League Pass. Sky do a good job of embracing the modern age, I'm surprised the Premier League haven't joined them by trying to sell matches as a package directly over the internet. It's a fucking goldmine.

mr.SPANKY

18 years ago

6 months ago

1,755

22 Jun 2013 10:18:23

Fox sports over here has every game live with viewers choice, I can watch one game at full screen or all of them at once. Love it never need to find a stream only shit thing is the hour obviously.

Ninja

15 years ago

7 years ago

5,341

22 Jun 2013 10:24:24

By Fantastic | Permalink | On 22 June 2013 - 10:43 AM

The system was put in place to protect stadium attendances, but being able to watch every match televised doesn't seem to hurt any other country. I paid £70 to be able to watch every single NBA match via League Pass and I don't see why the Premier League can't do what the NBA does, which means if a television rights holder has it available then it is blacked out, but if it is not being televised then it's available on League Pass. Sky do a good job of embracing the modern age, I'm surprised the Premier League haven't joined them by trying to sell matches as a package directly over the internet. It's a fucking goldmine.

They have to have considered it and come to the conclusion that they make more money by allowing smaller monopolies over matches than more than one broadcaster paying for the right to show the same game.

The only thing that really annoys me about the current system is the stupid 3'o clock Saturday rule.

Germany has a pretty nice TV show (or did have) where they would show one game and constantly flitter around the grounds to show you the goals from the other ones. Like a Soccer Saturday type show with actual football being shown.

Fantastic

14 years ago

8 months ago

2,496

Banned

22 Jun 2013 13:47:18

They need to be careful, As time goes on the quality of streaming football matches will rise, to the point where it is at a comparable level of a standard broadcast. At that point you enter into the territory all media has had to fight against: competing against free. If the Premier League/Sky/BT don't create a marketplace for all Premier League football matches then people will be keep on filling that need. They're fortunate because Sky has more than just Football under its umbrella, but BT, with their two packages, are going to have a hard time. Everyone who has held the poisonous sixth package has failed, they may have 2 and 6, but it's still an uphill struggle to get people to switch or buy now. The vast majority of their base will be incidental BT broadband customers.

Ninja

15 years ago

7 years ago

5,341

22 Jun 2013 15:00:17

Tbh, the biggest problem that they will face going into the digital millennia is based upon arbitrary rules they dreamed up decades ago to protect an increasingly outdated business model.

The biggest competitor for any digital media is free, convenient, and illegal sites that thrive because of copyright laws, lawsuits and the general difficulties of providing an extensive experience whilst paying royalties to who are legally owed them and negotiating for licenses.

I think it's interesting, because I think we're close to approaching a tipping point (in some ways we've already reached it) where these IP rights groups argue for the most draconian preventative protection possible, they are granted but only serve to make the problem worse leading to the same groups attempting to abolish them.

Things like DRM, making the illegal product superior to the legal, are surely the first step to that.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with the Premier League now.

Fantastic

14 years ago

8 months ago

2,496

Banned

22 Jun 2013 15:38:17

Well yeah, that's the point. They need to adapt their model to how people consume their media. It's only in the face of piracy that is forcing companies to address the issue they have, music had Napster/Youtube, film and television have Piratebay, Books had self-publishings/OCR, live sports have streams.

Music adapted by making music readily available to purchase free and easy over the internet and with youtube and spotify.

Film and television have Netflix, Amazon Instant, iPlayer, HBO Go etc

Books have the Kindle marketplace, which is arguable the most successful online endeavour of all the art forms.

Sports have MLB TV, NBA League Pass, NFL TV etc. That isn't a coincidence, America runs the most profitable sporting leagues in the world for a very particular reason: they monetise.

The Premier League should look at lobbying and then changing their model to suit the new age totally. I don't see why a conversation can't be had, everyone knows that you can't stop piracy, you have to compete with it.

King Luis

18 years ago

9 months ago

3,111

22 Jun 2013 15:54:00

By Fantastic | Permalink | On 22 June 2013 - 16:38 PM

Well yeah, that's the point. They need to adapt their model to how people consume their media. It's only in the face of piracy that is forcing companies to address the issue they have, music had Napster/Youtube, film and television have Piratebay, Books had self-publishings/OCR, live sports have streams.

Music adapted by making music readily available to purchase free and easy over the internet and with youtube and spotify.

Film and television have Netflix, Amazon Instant, iPlayer, HBO Go etc

Books have the Kindle marketplace, which is arguable the most successful online endeavour of all the art forms.

Sports have MLB TV, NBA League Pass, NFL TV etc. That isn't a coincidence, America runs the most profitable sporting leagues in the world for a very particular reason: they monetise.

The Premier League should look at lobbying and then changing their model to suit the new age totally. I don't see why a conversation can't be had, everyone knows that you can't stop piracy, you have to compete with it.

This is spot on. I used to pirate a shit ton of music years ago before Spotify and now Spotify offer an alternative at a fair price i just pay for that every month, if The Premier League offered a service and charged say £15 a month they would make an absolute fortune. Even if they charged £15 per team they would see alot of people using the service.

Ninja

15 years ago

7 years ago

5,341

22 Jun 2013 15:58:07

I'd argue in every single one of those instances the medium hasn't adapted fully, though, which is the point I'm trying to make.

It's about doing just enough but I think perhaps 2 or 3 examples provide better services than the illegal counterpart and most are hamstrung by protectionist portions of industries they rely on.

Fantastic

14 years ago

8 months ago

2,496

Banned

22 Jun 2013 17:26:29

By Ninja | Permalink | On 22 June 2013 - 16:58 PM

I'd argue in every single one of those instances the medium hasn't adapted fully, though, which is the point I'm trying to make.

It's about doing just enough but I think perhaps 2 or 3 examples provide better services than the illegal counterpart and most are hamstrung by protectionist portions of industries they rely on.

Definitely, but if they continue to keep working at it they will continue to see adopters.

I think a great example is Steam, they talk about how when they introduce Steam to a region piracy drops drastically, because it provides a good value service.

You need to get people adjusted to the idea that paying for content is correct, as long as it is done fairly. The problem is if you leave it too late then you make the process of illegally streaming football such a normality that getting people to convert will require more effort than simply showing the match.

K3V0

16 years ago

1 year ago

5,966

22 Jun 2013 17:48:10

Almost certain Sky or the Premier League did try the pay to watch a certain match back in like 2000 or 2001 when I was still living back in Ireland. It was frustrating as fuck because it'd always have the likes of Arsenal, United and Liverpool on it, so the bigger teams games you'd have to pay to watch.

Fantastic

14 years ago

8 months ago

2,496

Banned

22 Jun 2013 18:53:19

By K3VO | Permalink | On 22 June 2013 - 18:48 PM

Almost certain Sky or the Premier League did try the pay to watch a certain match back in like 2000 or 2001 when I was still living back in Ireland. It was frustrating as fuck because it'd always have the likes of Arsenal, United and Liverpool on it, so the bigger teams games you'd have to pay to watch.

That was package six. BT own it. It was called PremPlus. I'm talking specifically about the Premier League itself offering out a digital streaming package that allows the streaming of matches outside of the match packages that are sold every few years.