IPTV: France strikes hard against piracy, 174 sites wiped off the map

© Presse-citron/Unsplash Glenn Carstens-Peters

While DAZN offers a subscription for 30 euros per month (in the best case scenario) to follow Ligue 1, the temptation to pirate is becoming increasingly strong among football fans in France. On the other hand, the authorities in charge of combating this illegal content are also sparing no effort to stem this phenomenon.

Arcom blocks many pirate sites

According to Capital, 101 sites were blocked last Friday just before the start of the third day of the French championship, then three more just before the Lille-PSG match. Quoted by our colleagues, Arcom also wishes to warn: “We are seeing that live stream piracy is starting to decrease, but at the same time it is increasing on IPTV. We remain very vigilant.”.

Its half-dozen agents and automated technologies are mobilized to try to put pirate portals out of action. Efforts that translate into figures, since no fewer than 5,000 sites have been taken offline in two years.

The audiovisual and digital policeman also specifies that “133 Internet sites have been blocked on notification from Arcom, plus 41 sites on initial decision, for a total of 174 domain names”, since the start of the season.

As you can see, Arcom has no intention of reducing its efforts. But on the other hand, the determination of pirate networks and Internet users is also intact. Since the beginning of the year, we have seen a resurgence of illegal streaming, particularly on the Telegram application.

In fact, and in just a few clicks, it is child's play to launch a quality broadcast for free. Meetings bringing together several thousand spectators have been reported in the French press recently.

What are the risks if you use an IPTV ?

For the time being, rights holders and French authorities prefer to focus on blocking these portals and broadcasts. They also pursue pirates when they can. But some observers also believe that fraudulent Internet users will soon be subject to fines, as is already the case in Italy.

As a reminder, the use of pirate IPTV is punishable by Article 321-1 of the Penal Code. The latter characterizes it as receiving stolen goods. In concrete terms, if you use these illegal services, you risk three years in prison and a maximum fine of 375,000 euros. In reality, fortunately, no one is considering implementing this text, under penalty of putting several million citizens behind bars.

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