Clampdown on TV 'Dodgy Boxes'

Ooops....

Remember when live football on TV was basically 1 game on Sunday on ITV and FA Cup games on BBC? We were lucky because we'd get a Saturday 3pm game on Sports Stadium on RTE. Sky changed all of that but now all people do is moan about them.

I don't understand why it's laughable? Of course illegal IPTV services can provide this for cheap, they don't pay any money to produce the content in any way. They don't pay to make Mandalorian, For All Mankind or Squid Games which are all made by different streaming services but easily aggregated for an IPTV service.

You use spotify as an example. Spotify pretty much killed piracy and torrenting. But artists hardly get paid by them and music has lost practically all of it's value. Artists go out and gig a lot more now to make money and people complain that ticket prices are too high, but what other source of revenue do must musicians have now?

People think it'd be great to have 1 legit service and one sub, do they really think all of the content that is available to them now would be available on one legit service? If there are 5 streaming services they all require content so they all produce content, some of it is good and some of it is bad but the fact is that a lot of good content would never get made if there was only 1 legit streaming service.

Chorus/UPSHorizon Multichannel or whatever they were called at the time used to do that in Cork and Limerick, they would give free t-shirts to staff and then put up adverts for free t-shirts on their broadcasts, just call the number on the screen. They would then cross-check the caller delivery address for the t-shirts with active customers and get a list of addresses for the engineers to disconnect.

On the topic of sports, they used to do low-budget local rugby coverage that is still better than anything RTE or others have ever done since then.

I'd heard about that before but always thought it was an urban myth.

My nephews firestick is working great, can get all the sports and GAA channels, they used to use NowTV and at a tenner a top up for each game before that.

Supporting the production of content? Same reason I do have a few podcast and digital media subs (e.g. The Athletic). It's not just about football - HBO/ Sky Atlantic; Apple; Prime etc. do expensive, high quality productions.

It appears to be extremely difficult, bordering on impossible for broadcasters to block it at source given a lot of the streams are hosted in far flung locations well off the beaten track. So how can they block it?

Do they make an example out of a few users? I'd imagine legally they would find it difficult to really make a case against someone just using the service. There are too many variables involved in streaming. How do they prove that the IP that the user was connecting to was indeed an illegal stream of copyright material? Who do they hold responsible in multi tenant abodes? The bill payer? Again I can't see how they can prove categorically who was using the service is in this case. Hard to see the DPP taking a case like this to court.

Like most people I use a VPN on my firestick. That encrypts the traffic and once it leaves the VPN providers chosen server the ISP have no idea where the traffic is headed for. It's impossible for them to stop that.

Some of the anti IPTV / Pro multi billion dollar broadcaster posters on here seem to think people should look at their consciences and voluntarily stop using IPTV. Shudder to think Sky might be out of pocket.

Hard to see what they can do to be honest. I'd imagine the alternative subs will be available for a long time yet until the tech to block them catches up.

Sure. Smaller content creators should be supported. I have a few subs myself to the likes of The Pensive Quill. Not going to lose any sleep over Sky / HBO etc though. They seem to be doing alright. If they want a sub from me they can change their ways. E.g. as already mentioned look at Spotify for the music industry.

Well hopefully there can be some middle ground somewhere or IPTV will continue to take off.

Some additional points...

From what I have seen in my tests, the quality of live soccer matches on IPTV has been substandard when compared to the official stream on Now TV or Sky Glass/Stream. I have seen some IPTV streams labelled as "FHD 50FPS" - but in realiity, it was short of this. Yes, for most people the IPTV streams are probably "watchable", and I accept that. However, it is not possible for an IPTV stream to match the original. It's like uploading an MP3 to YouTube and someone else then downloading it. There will be a loss in quality.

Next is availability. There is no guarantee that for a big match or live event that the IPTV stream will hold up when you need it.

Lastly, it is widely known as being illegal - and you must accept that some people will simply not use it because of this.

But be honest, people don't want a middle ground really. The box has been opened.

People have access to more content then they'll ever need and the convenience of streaming it on their TV, tablet or phone for approx €60 per year. It has Live TV and catchup TV from around the world, PPVs, full TV box sets from Disney, Netflix, Prime, Apple & Paramount+ & movies in 4k. It's easy to use, it has a full EPG and the front end looks like Sky. There isn't a legit streaming service in the world that could offer all of this or anything close to it for €60 per year.

...well since illegal rebroadcasting has always existed, id say 24 is gonna be just another year rightsholders will try do what they can, but will probably ultimately fail....

People being fleeced is horrific. Especially in the current climate.

Of course there is nowhere that can offer that for €60 a year

a) they are all seperate companies

b) they are producing the content, not ripping it onto a sever?