The fight against piracy seems to be gathering pace throughout Europe.
Just this week we have reported two important developments in Ukraine. Firstly, its Cyber Police Department have confiscated the servers of fs.ro, one the country’s largest pirate sites. This follows the closure of the torrents tracker Torrents.Net.ua at the beginning of this month and imminent closure of ex.ua, another pirate site, on December 1.
Secondly, Divan.TV, a leading international OTT service provider, has launched a new iOS application that it says was developed with the core idea of forcing video content viewers to switch from pirate web platforms to legal ones.
Meanwhile, in neighbouring Poland we reported earlier this month that Canal+ Sport has reduced its coverage of Premier League games due to piracy in the UK. Apparently, games have been shown in pubs and other establishments with the illegal use of nc+ decoders.
We understand that the situation has now been resolved and viewers in Poland, by way of compensation, will even be offered additional live Premier League games at the end of this month and in December.
As an interesting footnote to the situation in the country, a recent study produced by the MEC agency found that torrents are become less popular, with pirates preferring to download films and series from streaming services.
There has also recently been a football-related ‘dispute’ in Russia, where a Moscow court granted an application by Match TV to stop a site named Chempionat.com from showing Russian Premier League, Europa League and Champions League matches.
Match TV is owned by Gazprom Media and we understand that actions against other sites will follow.
Football was also very much to the fore earlier this week in two anti-piracy developments in West European countries.
In Germany, a court convicted two people of the illegal live streaming of Sky Deutschland’s Bundesliga coverage. In Spain, a court suspended a sports site named Rojadirecta following complaints by Gol TV and Mediapro.
Clearly, action against piracy is now taking place across the continent. One cannot but help feel, however, that there is still a long way to go before it is makes a significant impact on what is a real problem.
