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30 September 2020CopyrightRory O'Neill

UEFA wins piracy injunction at Irish High Court

European football authority UEFA has won an injunction in Ireland requiring internet service providers (ISPs) to block illegal match streams.

The order, issued by the Irish High Court judge David Barniville, applies to ISPs including Eir, Sky, Virgin Media, and Vodafone.

Barniville granted a similar order against the same ISPs in June, following a request from the English Premier League.

Sky supported UEFA’s request for an injunction, while the other ISPs did not oppose it, Irish public broadcaster RTÉ reported.

UEFA told the High Court that licensing broadcast rights for its competitions was the source of 80% of its revenue.

Football authorities such as the Premier League have become increasingly active in seeking court orders requiring ISPs to block illegal streams, which threaten clubs’ biggest revenue sources.

A proposed takeover of Newcastle United by a Saudi-backed consortium collapsed this summer amid concerns over the Gulf kingdom’s stance on piracy.

Saudi Arabia has been accused of being behind beoutQ, a pirate service that repackaged sports broadcasts licensed exclusively to Qatar-based beIN Sports.

Earlier this month, meanwhile, British police served thousands of people with warnings over their use of illegal TV streaming services.

In May, the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) reported that the number of illegal streaming links had trebled during the UK’s initial COVID-19 lockdown period earlier this year.

But a UK Intellectual Property Office report issued in August said that levels of infringement had since declined and that they had not observed a prolonged COVID-19 spike in digital piracy.

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