Sky has criticised Amazon for failing to tackle the amount of sports broadcast piracy after it was estimated the company’s Fire Sticks were indirectly responsible for around half of illegal steaming of Premier League football in the UK alone.
Nick Herm, Sky’s chief operating officer told the Financial Times Business of Football conference that it was costing the industry “hundreds of millions of dollars”. He called on Amazon to work with it on stamping out the piracy.
“If you speak to friends and colleagues, [or] you watch football, people will know that you can get jail-broken Fire Sticks, and you can access pirated services on Fire Sticks,” he told the FT’s Business of Football conference.
Jail breaking is a practice that makes it possible to install apps outside of Amazon’s own operating system.
“There are football fans who literally have shirts printed out that say Fire Sticks on them?.?.?.?With some of the tech giants, Amazon in particular, we do not get enough engagement to address some of those problems, where people are buying these devices in bulk,” said Herm.
Until recently Amazon itself was a rights holder to the Premier League – it screened its final set of matches over Christmas – but continues to offer Champions League in the UK market.
Sky and the Premier League regularly work with the anti-piracy organisation FACT. Over the past 12 months, FACT has reported a string of investigations involving Fire Stick piracy, most recently in January when A man from Halifax who sold modified TV fire sticks was sentenced to two years in prison.
Amazon told the FT it was “committed to providing customers with a high-quality streaming experience while actively promoting a streaming landscape that respects intellectual property rights and encourages the responsible consumption of content”.
