Shazam-like technology used to identify bars illegally streaming soccer games

https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/12/18662968/la-liga-app-illegal-soccer-streaming-fine

by rexbee • 7 years ago

464 308 7 years ago

theverge.com

unixhero• 7 years ago

Sigh

Scoundreller8• 7 years ago

This is an old story.

The update is the Spanish gov fining the league 1/240th of their top player’s salary (250k/61m) for abusing 10m of their residents’ personal technology and privacy.

Another way of putting it is 1/100th of the team salary for the lowest spending team (250k/24m). Which, in-turn, spends 1/33rd as much as the top spender.

mosselman• 7 years ago

What are `(250k/61m)` and `(250k/24m)`? 250.000 euros per 61 months? How can that be expressed in a fine? 250.000 * 61? I am confused, sorry.

indeed30• 7 years ago

250k is the fine, 61m is the top salary, 250k/61m is 1/244

ummonk• 7 years ago

I assume 250k was the fine, 61m the top player's salary, and 24 million the lowest team salary.

ankit2193• 7 years ago

61M is the yearly salary of Lionel Messi. The top earner in Spanish League.

24M is the annual revenue of the smallest spending team in Spanish League.

deogeo• 7 years ago

"the recordings of others will always be illegal because they violate the Fundamental Right to the Secrecy of Communications, established in Article 18.3 of the Spanish Constitution." [1]

A very mild punishment for 10 million instances of breaking their constitution. Since the law is equal for all, I can only assume an individual spying on conversations would be treated with similar clemency.

And despite what the league says, yes, it is spying. They listen in for some piece of data that they're curious about. That they discard irrelevant bits client-side doesn't change that.

[1] https://www.ilpabogados.com/en/is-it-legal-to-record-a-conve...

closetohome• 7 years ago

The part I'm confused by is how the Spanish government reacted more quickly than Google. I would assume the app and organization would be banned from the store before anything else happened.

Scoundreller8• 7 years ago

An App Store isn’t going to ban a provider that its users want.

Though if soccer leagues can fine players, I don’t see why Google couldn’t fine its “players” too. I know they’re not the police/judge/jury, but should they be limited to a binary allow/ban?

State-intervention was definitely needed in this case.

throwaway2048• 7 years ago

This will lead to an arms race with deploying cellular, GPS and wifi jammers. You can order them online right now for low prices, at low power they are very unlikely to ever be investigated.

https://www.jammer-store.com/gps-blockers-jammers/

Do note things like this are HIGHLY illegal, and carry pretty insane fines if you are caught.

flyGuyOnTheSly2• 7 years ago

No bar is going to install a cell, gps or wifi jammer to avoid a small fine... as doing so would put them out of business.

No customer is going to hang out in a bar where their cell phone doesn't work.

maccard• 7 years ago

No customer is going to hang out in a bar where their cell phone doesn't work.

I don't think that's true - there's plenty of coffee shops/bars where my phone is totally dead as most of the walls in the city I live in are solid stone and at least a foot thick.

bluedino• 7 years ago

What bar is going to be quiet enough for sound fingerprinting to work?

anthk6• 7 years ago

That's how you get an empty bar in Spain. We love to drink moderately and socialize, but FFS, the young people loves to use either WhatsAPP or talk with their relatives just in case.

Also on the insane fines, these can be huge in Spain. Do not ever fuck communications there.

Scoundreller8• 7 years ago

Do not ever fuck communications there.

Any particular cases we should look into? I figure not a lot of what goes on in Spain makes it into the English-language press.

thisisitnownow• 7 years ago

It's insane that they can get away with this with so little consequence.

jMyles4• 7 years ago

edit: I misunderstood OP's comment; makes much more sense when I read it in the light suggested by anchpop below.

...that they can get away with copying a bytestream and decoding the result onto a screen? Which harms nobody?

The insane part is that people, even on HN, have become convinced that someone can own knowledge to such exclusivity that copying bytes can be a crime.

anchpop• 7 years ago

The commenter was probably referring to the actions taken by LaLiga, not the bars illegally streaming.

oh_sigh6• 7 years ago

So you wouldn't mind if I copied bytes of yours, such as private pictures, private documents, etc?

rolltiide• 7 years ago

Spanish data protection agency claims that the app didn’t make [the use of the microphone permission] clear, and has ordered LaLiga to take down the app by June 30th

So all they have to do is describe what it does and hope users don't uninstall it? seems lesser than getting removed from the app stores

xythian• 7 years ago

I'm waiting for a company to start paying $X to the first Y people that passively find illegal streaming. Turn people into fully aware copyright cops on your behalf. You leave an app running in the background and it listens 24x7 for unauthorized sports broadcasts.

raverbashing• 7 years ago

Oh but that exists (kinda)

They pay people to go around bars and find the ones that are showing the games without the glass drawing on the corner (drawing also changes depending on the day, etc)

tsumnia• 7 years ago

I've always thought that people would be more than willing to opt in to data collection services if they were paid. I gladly answer location questions via Google Rewards because they give me 10 to 50 cents each time. It doesn't need to be a minimum wage thing, just none of the subterfuge.

hedvig• 7 years ago

Ironic no? This was one of the major criticism of communism in practice. Except now your neighbor snoops on you for a small profit in protecting the outsized profits of capital.

escapecharacter• 7 years ago

I’m really into the dark future of DRM enforcement drones flying around cities listening for illegal streaming.

daenz• 7 years ago

It will be like red light cameras, where you just receive a ticket/bill in the mail, with a photo of proof of the date and time of the infraction.

will_brown• 7 years ago

The should be so lucky...PPV is a crazy industry in terms of structure but local ppv providers would send uncover patrons to bars to find illegal ppv streams and next thing a bar/restaurant knows they got served with a lawsuit usually for about $10,000 (for UFC events anyway).

slg• 7 years ago

I am not sure how many people outside the UK are aware of this, but a similar thing has existed there for nearly 70 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van

dcminter• 7 years ago

The vans exist. The implied technology within them not so much.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/bbc-tv-licence-v...

Theodores• 7 years ago

One of those vans with tinted windows would make an awesome camper van. Clearly you would be geographically limited to the UK however if that van was quietly parked up somewhere then nobody would suspect someone was sleeping in it.

A vintage one would be cool too, probably a bit tricky in headwinds with that weight on the top. You could also watch TV pretty well just by watching what other people had on. Shame LCD flatscreens ended this nonsense.

Most people believed the vans were mythical and that they just had a map with a database. The vans - according to some - were fake, just to put fear into people.

guelo• 7 years ago

Luckily drones are too damn loud for that.

munk-a3• 7 years ago

Eh, I prefer dark future dystopia's that rely on terrible human nature - call me when the provider starts injecting an advertisement into the game over all residentially broadcast streams "We're conducting a market research survey, are you seeing this in a pub or bar? If so call this number for a free 10$ starbucks gift card!" or even just "Broadcast of this program in a pub or bar is illegal, if you have witnessed this call this number to collect a finder's fee."

myself2483• 7 years ago

I recall hearing of a DirecTV or similar network using a trick like that: In the minutes prior to a PPV broadcast, they sent a "Subscriber bonus - call now to claim your free T-shirt" or something, but it was encrypted with a key that the legit receivers didn't have -- only the pirate receivers could decode it. Thousands claimed it...

I can't find a source for this anecdote at the moment, sorry.

savethefuture• 7 years ago

This is certainly technology gone berserk...this wont end well for anyone (maybe the ones that sue for illegal streaming)

quickthrower2• 7 years ago

I think that would actually be less sinister than this!

Steko• 7 years ago

If those are the worst drones flying around, that may be the brightest timeline.

josecastillo• 7 years ago

This reminds me of a short story by Paul Ford from a few years back[1]:

We had gone to a baseball game at the beginning of the season. They had played a song on the public address system, and she sang along without permission. They used to factor that into ticket price—they still do if you pay extra or have a season pass—but now other companies handled the followup. And here was the video from that day, one of many tens of thousands simultaneously recorded from gun scanners on the stadium roof. In the video my daughter wore a cap and a blue T-shirt. I sat beside her, my arm over her shoulder, grinning. Her voice was clear and high; the ambient roar of the audience beyond us filtered down to static...

I told my waiting daughter to go ahead and pay the few dollars, just part of the latent cost of a ticket. She tapped and the tablet made its cash-register sound, and the video was irrevocably destroyed so that it could never again be shared.

[1] https://www.ftrain.com/nanolaw

sneakernets• 7 years ago

I had written (in college) a small story about an "RIAA Task Force" collaborating with the FBI to raid small brick-and-mortar businesses with occupants above some fabled "listener limit" that dared to have an FM Radio or iPod connected to a boombox in the corner of the store somewhere. Everything from Barbershops to Butchershops were raided, and the small infringing devices confiscated.

Given that the RIAA tried to sue a grandmother once, This wasn't too far-fetched.

jacquesm2• 7 years ago

You think that's fiction? In NL we actually have this...

ikeyany3• 7 years ago

Why is it illegal to amplify music in your store if you paid for the music?

greedo• 7 years ago

Actually it would be either ASCAP or BMI that enforces this fee. When I owned a small restaurant, I had to pay for the privilege of playing CDs over a stereo.

ankit2193• 7 years ago

One of those cases where both sides are in the mud. La Liga is struggling with piracy of games for long. They have been trying to make money of their product (football essentially features two of the greatest players to play the game in last 10 years, only one now) but struggle due to their whacky ideas and no care about fans. Sample this: The timings of games are as early as 12PM (spanish siesta is at 4PM) and as late as 11 PM local time. They host 10 rounds every week, most in different slots to get more eyeballs. They have acted in bad faith in a sense too. Spanish law requires one of those 10 games to be free to air. They made sure that game is one held on Friday or Monday at 11 PM (teams' fans call it graveyard shift) and nothing on f2a tv on weekend.The ones listed are the ideas which made through while others like having one random game in US thankfully did not. Though, given their ineptitude, its a sure wonder how they managed to execute this so well.

Bars should not be streaming the games illegally either. But since the cable prices are too high, and nothing on free to air, they have to in order to attract crowds. There is no official streaming service - albeit not bundled with cable tv subscription - that people in these countries can make use of to watch games.

The path forward maybe what Formula1 did by introducing a streaming service which is not geo blocked. This way, I can watch a race at reasonable subscription from anywhere in the world. They also allow me a racer only feed, or the global feed, or a feed from a particular stand. I will definitely buy it if any official football league offers that too.

airstrike• 7 years ago

But since the cable prices are too high, and nothing on free to air, they have to in order to attract crowds.

Somehow I find it hard to believe a business can't afford cable. Even if it costs $200 / month, surely they ought to be able to cover that.

hn_throwaway_99• 7 years ago

$200 is not that far off from what an individual would pay. Surely the rebroadcast rights that a bar would need are much, much higher than that, no?

MAGZine• 7 years ago

Illegal in this case may not mean streaming from some random website, it may mean buying a regular cable subscription and rebroadcasting it to your bar.

You need special permission (and may need to pay extra) to "perform," copyrighted works for a larger audience, in the same way you can play music over a speaker for yourself, but not for a large group of people.

munk-a3• 7 years ago

I was under the impression that a business would need to pay a screening fee for showing the game - I'd assume that illegally in this case doesn't mean via bitorrent but instead means playing content from a residential cable subscription to an audience.

I tend to side strongly with bars in most of these cases as broadcasters absolutely must be aware that bars frequently want to show sports games and they have failed to make licensing for this sort of showing reasonable from a logistical standpoint (sometimes wanting to charge a royalty based on how many distinct people watched any part of the game) that might actually be a reasonable fee in the end - but the cost of calculating the proper fee to pay outsizes the fee itself.

iagooar• 7 years ago

Spanish bars truly are a perfect example of a race to the bottom, when it comes to prices. Sure, the financial crisis hit the country really hard, but trying to attract customers by lowering prices is not the best strategy in the long term.

This is when 200 € / month hurt - because you already run on a very tiny profit margin.

Soccer / football is such a huge thing in Spain, people would understand if they need to pay a little extra for their drinks or food in bars that have decent infrastructure to broadcast the games. Yet somehow most bar owners are afraid to take the risk.

I know this, because I used to live there for many years, and keep going there to visit relatives many times a year.

peterwwillis• 7 years ago

We're talking about Spain. They recently emerged from a gruelling recession, their shadow economy makes up an estimated 20% of real GDP, and competition ran their profits into the ground. Even if small businesses have the cash, there's no incentive for them to spend it, and they're probably still in hoarding-cash mode.

grahamel• 7 years ago

they pay a lot more than that, couldn't find a Spain cost but examples for the UK they pay on average £20,000 per year[1] - the cost varies on the rateable value of the pub

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/football/the-set-pieces-blog/201...

CtrlAltT5wpm• 7 years ago

Take this with a grain or two of salt, as I don't recall the source, but it seems plausible - I read somewhere that when it comes to businesses like bars, at least in the US, there is a normal rate applied to the cable package, and an additional rate applied 'per head' for the event in question. This may only be for pay-per-view events where multiple people can congregate at a single location which has paid the PPV fee, and not necessarily for widely broadcast events; I've seen sports bars charge cover for highly anticipated MMA matches.

How those rules are enforced is beyond me. Tangentially related, some of the legitimate, paid-for streams have been of pretty low quality, cutting out frequently. Not sure if it's because of draconian DRM or just excessive demand, but it would be interesting to find out.

Mikeb85• 7 years ago

Businesses can't simply pay for a residential subscription. They need to get a special subscription and often pay screening charges per event, it can often run as high as hundreds or thousands per event as it's based off your maximum capacity and not your actual attendance.

rndgermandude• 7 years ago

Don't know about Spain in particular, but usually the fees in European countries are calculated for each individual bar, based on size and location. E.g. in Germany for a package of the top two major German leagues and UEFA (and some international ones), you can expect EUR 100-200 for tiny pubs in rural areas and small towns, EUR 500 for mid-sized bars and pubs in mid-sized cities, and up to EUR 2000 for big bars in big cities, per month.

guiomie• 7 years ago

My key take away from your comment is F1 has non geo-fenced service. I just went on their website, and I'm blown away. You can select a cockpit to stream, you have a bunch of geeky data, all while you can watch the GP in it's traditional way. I might get back into F1 just for this.

solarkraft• 7 years ago

This could be done with football too (albeit a little more limited, but still). That would actually be cool.

If only they spent all the money they used to identify the games on actual customer-beneficial things ...

dabeeeenster• 7 years ago

It is still geo-fenced - its not available in the UK.

johnnycab• 7 years ago

I might get back into F1 just for this.

I wouldn't be so hasty, as the service has had some blackouts.

https://www.gpfans.com/en/articles/38904/f1-tv-offering-comp...

dharmab• 7 years ago

Liberty Media has also done a really good job with the F1 YouTube channel in recent years, providing an avenue for casual fans to keep up with the season.

Too bad the 2019 season is shaping up so poorly...

Swizec2• 7 years ago

I recently got back into F1. The viewing experience is amazing, so much better than what I remember from youth. Even if I do miss my favorite commentator.

And I love that I can watch the replay at my leisure on any device. That is amazing.

However ... would it kill them to remember where I stopped watching and continue the replay from there? I don’t always (ie never) have the patience to sit through a 2 hour race

julianz• 7 years ago

It is geofenced in countries where someone holds the rights to broadcast F1 (like New Zealand). No F1TV for us.

ankit2193• 7 years ago

It is not 100% non-geo blocked considering F1 had contracts for exclusive coverage from earlier. But, once those contracts end, it will be available everywhere. (as far as I know UK is one where its not available due to deal with SKY)

The streaming also has some technical issues as they vastly underestimated the demand and the server could not take the load. Latest occurrence was at Canadian GP. I am not praising the service in the current state, but I strongly feel that is the way forward for sports broadcast. I have been an early adopter, and like the options I am provided (along with the influx of data I get) when the traditional TV streaming felt constraining and powerless.

shusson2• 7 years ago

La Liga is struggling with piracy of games for long. They have been trying to make money of their product but struggle due to their whacky ideas and no care about fans.

What are you talking about, La Liga is making billions of dollars [1][2]

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymcmahon/2019/03/07/report-...

[2] https://www.laliga.es/en/news/laliga-grows-20-6-and-posts-re...

parthdesai• 7 years ago

Compared to PL, it absolutely is. Specially when you factor in the fact that Ronaldo and Messi both played in the league till last season.

briandear3• 7 years ago

It doesn’t matter how much they make, there is no justifiable reason to suggest that stealing their content is acceptable. It isn’t a social service or some essential like food or medicine where they are gouging people. Content too expensive? Don’t buy it.

zouhair• 7 years ago

I don't follow the Formula1 but my father does, I would like to get him a subscription but all I can find on their website is a subscription for replays 7 days after a Grand Prix and nothing live besides stats.

narag• 7 years ago

Movistar+ has a F1 channel

pedrocr• 7 years ago

This is the service:

https://f1tv.formula1.com/en/

It's not available in every country and it's been comically bad so far. Most races the streaming just fails and when it's not failing it routinely drops down to an incredibly low resolution for a few seconds. The replays usually work once the race is over though.

ankalagon• 7 years ago

The timings of games are as early as 12PM (spanish siesta is at 4PM) and as late as 11 PM local time.

No adult does "siesta" in Spain. Please, let's stop spreading this stereotype.

Soccer games usually start at 22:00 or 23:00 hours.

anthk6• 7 years ago

(Spanish siesta is at 4PM)

That's ridiculous.

vibragiel2• 7 years ago

As a 40 year old Spaniard, I have never heard of this 4 PM siesta time.

duxup2• 7 years ago

I'd like to see physical switches on all electronics that CUT POWER to cameras and mics and have a clear indicator when they are active or not.

I don't know that people would use them, but I'd like to have the option.

iscrewyou• 7 years ago

I would use them! I loved the physical WiFi switches on old laptops. These need to come back. A physical button for airplay mode. I would buy the latest iPhone the day it comes if Apple does this.

Gibbon12• 7 years ago

I think the law needs to recognize an intermediate expectation of privacy. Right now we have a hard level[1] or no expectation at all[2]. And that's it. And intermediate rule should make anything but incidental recording criminal[3]

[1] Film a lady in a dressing room? go to jail.

[2] Topless at the beach? Perverts can record you and upload the videos to porn sites.

[3] Camera recording people around the store, legal. Using AI to track who they are and collate that with other camera's? Felony, go to prison.

Scoundreller8• 7 years ago

Easier said than done. On circuits that use small enough amounts of power, they can run parasitically from the power through pullup resistors on I/O lines. I've seen microcontrollers continue to work fine after lifting their power pin.

duxup2• 7 years ago

It would take a deliberate design effort for sure.

JMTQp8lwXL2• 7 years ago

It's possible for bars to mute audio and turn on subtitles.

kristofferR• 7 years ago

It is also possible for bars to not serve alcohol. What's your point?

JMTQp8lwXL2• 7 years ago

The point being, a "Shazam-like" detection strategy would not work in that setting.

hammock2• 7 years ago

Tangentially related: there is a cool app called Tunity that "shazams" a muted TV, e.g. at a bar, finds the game and lets you play the audio from your phone - syncing it perfectly to the video picture that you shazamed. So you can sit at a bar or waiting room or somewhere with muted TVs, and listen to the audio of the game.

scarface74• 7 years ago

How can this possibly be legal? It seems cool though.

gorbypark• 7 years ago

That's a great idea. I've always wanted to create an app that would pretty much do exactly that, except for doing outdoor guerilla movies (kind of like a renegade drive in movie theatre). As to not annoy neighbours, you'd listen to a stream of the audio on your phone with headphones. It would be pretty easy to setup a stream, but because of differences in phones and network latency there'd have to be client-side syncing.

borumpilot• 7 years ago

...when the venue has a hearTV device installed and you are connected to their network... But cool nevertheless.

hammock2• 7 years ago

I don't know what heartv is. I used it at a random bar and it just synced to the audio fingerprint.

xenospn• 7 years ago

Just give everyone headphones.

PhasmaFelis• 7 years ago

Semi-related, the technology used in Shazam and other music ID services grew from companies that monitored radio stations to make sure they were playing all the ads they'd been paid for.

In the mid-2000s, I worked on a Shazam-like text message service that would ID songs on the radio for you, and send you an iTunes purchase link. You texted us the radio station you were listening to, and we sent that and the timestamp to a server run by a company with listening stations all over the US, and it told us what song it was hearing at that time. The company's main clients were advertisers checking up on radio stations, but the technology worked just as well for music.

It was a pretty sweet little service for the time, but sadly we never launched. I was amused when I saw far more polished apps like Shazam doing essentially the same thing, years later.

acd• 7 years ago

In certain EU countries that could be A) Illegal wiretapping B) GDPR violation

If they happen to record other private information such as what political party one likes, or religion one likes they would be even more in legal trouble. And also recording anything about sexual life which could happen in a bar conversation say between friends.

zwaps• 7 years ago

It is a violation, for both a) and b).

They got into trouble.

They didn't pay a lot of money for that, though.

Scoundreller8• 7 years ago

They might have lost a lot of legal cases if their basis was illegally gained evidence.

But I have no idea how Spanish civil law works.

SmellyGeekBoy4• 7 years ago

This was pre-GDPR. It would be interesting to see how it would play out today.

rconti• 7 years ago

Clever. Illegal, but clever.

jimbob45• 7 years ago

It doesn't feel like sports leagues want me to be a fan anymore. Take the NBA for example. I can't attend games because they're outside of my price range. I can't buy merchandise because a simple jersey costs north of $50. I can't watch the games because the subscription per month costs too much and bars are starting to get priced out of the range too. Encouraging my kid to play in high school to go pro is a joke since there are no minor leagues that he could fall into since he's not a genetic freak.

I want to be a fan but it feels like the sports leagues don't really value fans anymore. Instead, they want to safeguard their product so that only the rich can enjoy it.

SmellyGeekBoy4• 7 years ago

So don't be a fan anymore? I can't afford to own a Ferrari... so I don't.

narnianal2• 7 years ago

What about it is Shazam-like? Are they a super hero? Are they funny? I don't get it.

jefftk2• 7 years ago

They're referring to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shazam_(application)

narnianal2• 7 years ago

Ah because it identifies audio input. I see. Quite disappointing, tbh. I thought they refer to the movie.

shusson2• 7 years ago

The app does explain in the terms of service that by giving the app permission, users are consenting to LaLiga using their phones to detect fraudulent behavior, like pirated soccer games.

Completely missed this on my first pass. Makes the story a bit less dramatic, still a serious privacy breach, but not so nefarious.

myself2483• 7 years ago

I've never been in a bar where the TVs had their audio on. The sports games are on screens but muted, and some have closed-captioning turned on.

Wouldn't that defeat this?

Slightly off-topic but I feel like relating it:

When I was a kid, we'd watch baseball games on TV, but muted. Then we'd turn on the radio and tune in whatever station was simulcasting the game. Because the radio announcers assume you can't see the action, they narrate a lot more of what's going on, so we could follow the gameplay without having to be glued to the screen every instant.

We also didn't have air conditioning, so baseball season was windows-open season, and more than once a pedestrian would pause to listen, sometimes holler "HEY WHAT'S THE SCORE?" into the house, we'd holler back, they'd continue down the sidewalk. _Everyone_ watched the Tigers in the 80s, and it was said that when a game was on, you could walk clear from Trenton to Mt Clemens and never be out of the sound of Ernie Harwell's voice.

schnevets• 7 years ago

Sports in bars is a very different experience with sound on vs. off. Without sound, it's a background distraction that a few folks may be interested in. With sound on (even if the commentary is indecipherable), it's a collective experience that holds everyone's attention. Usually the bar will mute or put on music during commercial breaks.

I do wonder if alternative commentary would ever catch on. Imagine if instead of talking heads you had a music track that would mimic the tension of the game like a music score.

KingMachiavelli• 7 years ago

Personally, I feel a slapstick comedy track would work best. /joke

What could work really well is some live radio, podcast, twitch of commentary to supplement the detectable pirated audio. The biggest issue would be syncing the video and audio.

batiudrami2• 7 years ago

It used to be reasonably common to mute commercial TV and listen to the ABC (public radio)'s broadcast for commentary in AFL and cricket in Australia.

I don't hear about it much anymore which I would guess is due to the encoding delay of digital TV vs analogue radio broadcast and the general lack of AM/FM radios in the living area.

Foxtel (pay TV) also trialed an alternative commentary track with a more parochial commentator for Collingwood games.

SomeOldThrow3• 7 years ago

Honestly the best way to watch baseball at least is to mute the TV and turn on the radio—vastly higher quality commentary, and you can look up in time to see the play you just heard. The ads also tend to be more local and less obnoxious.

DEADBEEFC0FFEE• 7 years ago

Nice story, thanks for sharing.

jdietrich3• 7 years ago

Sky Sports use a far simpler solution that doesn't violate anyone's privacy.

The satellite feed that's licensed for public venues has a small beer glass logo burned in to the image. The amount of beer in the glass changes every day on a pseudorandom basis. An inspector can check whether a pub has the right license simply by looking at the screen - if the glass is missing or contains the wrong amount of beer, it's an unlicensed stream. It's plausibly hackable by a sufficiently motivated person, but it's a remarkably simple and effective deterrent.

https://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2016/12/13/game-theory-ap...

orf2• 7 years ago

But what if you are pirating a legal stream? Does the beer glass change per subscriber? And then surely they would know by just asking “does this pub, at this address, have a sky sports subscription?”

Seems simpler?

Also, side note, I’ve never seen the glass anything other than full.

jdietrich3• 7 years ago

But what if you are pirating a legal stream?

The glass only appears on the (vastly more expensive) pub licensed feed, not on the consumer feed. The higher cost and much smaller pool of licensed customers reduces the likelihood of someone pirating the feed and vastly simplifies the process of identifying the leak. A pirate could burn in the right logo to a standard consumer feed, but they'd need daily information from someone who can view the pub licensed feed.

Given the incredibly devious history of satellite anti-piracy technology, I would fully expect Sky to have a bunch of other, subtler data hidden in the feeds and codecs.

zamadatix• 7 years ago

This does nothing to prevent streaming the game it prevents bars from buying consumer service instead of business service.

masklinn• 7 years ago

Since pub streams are much more expensive and the pool is much smaller, you could probably tag each pub stream individually on the fly, with a visual representation of a (pubid, date) hash.

Pub streams are also probably harder to pirate. You might get a single stream license and use it in the 3 bars you own, but then the service provider would quickly wonder how comes you own 3 sports bars and have a single license.

stordoff• 7 years ago

Sky Sports also periodically burn in a nine-digit identifier into the consumer streams (presumably to identify the source of illegal streams).

https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/How-to/What-s-that-9-digit-numb...

SmellyGeekBoy4• 7 years ago

I've heard stories of pint glass stickers being stuck to the screen to get around this. Probably just an urban legend but amusing to think about nonetheless.

onorton• 7 years ago

It did happen and it was solved by changing the amount in the pint glass over time as the GP says.

jrootabega• 7 years ago

Like the train conductors who change the ticket punch shape each trip.

corrius• 7 years ago

LaLiga already does this, they display a "B" on the corner and every few minutes a code that can be checked against the subscription, but this doesn't seem to be enough...

Lowkeyloki2• 7 years ago

This really doesn't sit well with me. Yes, the bars in question were breaking the law. However, keep in mind that one business was using private citizens to essentially spy on other businesses without the citizens' knowledge or consent.

I'm sure the users of the app technically gave legal consent via the app's terms of service. But I doubt even 1% of the app's users were actually aware of this aspect of the app.

Also, this is why the permissions an app requires to operate matter. I roll my eyes just as hard as the next person when I see comments in the Google's Play store about the absurd level of permissions required by some apps. But I also think twice when I install apps requiring ridiculous permissions compared with what they're supposed to do.

andrewstuart• 7 years ago

Could be a good business opportunity.

Make a "compliance device" for shops/hotels/supermarkets that want to comply with their licensing obligations.

All the store owner does is place a listening device in their shop and it listens to what licensed content is used and automatically invoices and ensures compliance.

Lowkeyloki2• 7 years ago

/s? Please?

Uberphallus• 7 years ago

Coming up for YC 3Q 2019

kelnos2• 7 years ago

This has the same solution as any other story around copyright infringement.

If you provide people with easy, convenient, legal methods to consume the content in a way that works for them, for a price they find reasonable, then they overwhelmingly won't resort to illegal means.

I'm not saying these bars are correct to resort to illegal streaming, but a wise businessperson would see this as a signal that their product offering doesn't actually match demand, and work to fill that demand. You're not going to make 100% of people happy in 100% of cases, but you can get to a point where the level of illegal streaming just isn't worth cracking down on.

It's such a sad waste that all this money has been spent to identify and track down illegal activity when it could have been spent making the overall legal experience good enough that most people wouldn't need to resort to illegality. It adds insult to injury to note that companies like La Liga are already making money hand-over-fist; it's not like they have some sort of crisis where the lost revenue due to illegal streaming is posing an existential threat to their business. Instead of cracking down and making enemies, they could instead work to make the experience better and turn potential enemies into satisfied customers.

danem2• 7 years ago

a signal that their product offering doesn't actually match demand

Is it? Why would a smart businessman (the bar owner) pay more for a product when a cheaper alternative (pirating) exists?

sjwright2• 7 years ago

For the same reason they don’t stock their bar with beer stolen from the brewery?

ordu• 7 years ago

Because "smart" isn't a synonym for a "criminal".

batiudrami2• 7 years ago

I don't know about La Liga specifically but in general bars pay a much higher fee than end users to stream sports because it's such a big value-add for them. It's likely that these bars are streaming publicly on a user license, rather than using an illegal stream. The value proposition isn't necessarily that far out - just people want to pay less for things and will do if they can.

SmellyGeekBoy4• 7 years ago

This is exactly it. If the bar owner living upstairs already pays for satellite TV for home use, why pay the extra for the bar license? Just rig up an HDMI splitter.

C1sc0cat2• 7 years ago

That is why in the UK in a pub you can see a small pint glass in the corner of the screen its the feed for commercial use.

ddffre• 7 years ago

True to that, as an example the NBA league pass provides a good experience for a decent price.

ryan_j_naughton• 7 years ago

If you provide people with easy, convenient, legal methods to consume the content in a way that works for them, for a price they find reasonable, then they overwhelmingly won't resort to illegal means.

I think the problem with your statement is "for a price they find reasonable." Because the price some find reasonable is much lower than others (the very reason why demand curves are downward sloping is they there are different willingness to pay for different customers).

Since La Liga can't price discriminate easily and charge those with higher willingness to pay more AND since they have a monopoly over these games, the rational economic decision of the league is to keep the prices at a higher price, which while unfortunately resulting in fewer people having access, it also means more profit for them.

Thus, I don't think it is as simple as you are making it appear.

ddingus• 7 years ago

If they are making more money, what exactly is the worry?

One of their real worries just might be having greater success resulting in an actual decline in access.

Something else can enter that vacuum pretty damn easy.

CaptainZapp• 7 years ago

Since La Liga can't price discriminate easily

Sports broadcasts are massively price discriminated, however, which is probably the whole point of this bruhaha.

Pubs in the UK, for example, pay a much higher fee (something like 15'000£ a year[1]) than households (which I believe is in the 50Quid range a month) for the right to publicly broadcast the games.

It's probably such shenanigans (using a home subscription to show in the pub) that they're trying to fight. Not that I agree with the methods, mind you.

This, btw, explains why you see a beer glass in the corner of sports broadcasts in English pubs[2]. At least the ones that are properly licensed.

[1] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechno...

[2] https://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2016/12/13/game-theory-ap...

e: spello

lostmymind662• 7 years ago

"If you provide people with easy, convenient, legal methods to consume the content in a way that works for them, for a price they find reasonable, then they overwhelmingly won't resort to illegal means."

I disagree. Music is cheaper and easier to buy than ever with things like iTunes and the various streaming services and music piracy is still rampant.

Bars have very slim margins and owners will most likely never pay for these these streams, regardless of price, if they can easily get away with it.

briandear3• 7 years ago

Successful bars don’t have slim margins. Restaurants often have slim margins because of food waste, but bars have pretty good margins. There is very good profit on drinks: a 750 bottle of Tito’s vodka costs about $18 wholesale, provides 16 shots, at $5 per shot, that’s $80. Then discount 20% for spillage, that’s $64. Bartenders in the US make tips, so the hourly cost to the bar is pretty minimal, but in Europe, everything is more expensive, but the ratios remain similar because a $5 shot in Europe would be €8, with no tipping, but roughly 20% of that price would go to the additional labor costs.

A well managed bar that keeps comps and spillage under control can make a very good profit, especially on soccer nights. Restaurants have very different economics because there are costs for the kitchen and other food waste. Anyone who has ever been in the restaurant business knows that the real profit comes from selling the drinks, not the food.

kwijibob• 7 years ago

Is music piracy really 'rampant'?

My sense is that cheap legal streaming services have won the day. The original itunes model of $1+ per song is gone.$10-$20 CD's are gone.

Yes cheapskates can still torrent music and maintain their own digital archives. But for ease of use you cannot be spotify and equivalents.

Spotify beats piracy.

The same needs to happen for TV, movies, and live sport. (for a while there Netflix made pirate bay obsolete for me)

In the disruption alot of old school middle-men are going to lose big. But overall there should be confident streams of revenue, even more than you can get with outdated 1990s cable TV pay-per-view systems.

lenkite• 7 years ago

Music piracy has dropped considerably.

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/...

https://www.fudzilla.com/news/46891-streaming-is-killing-mus...

https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/3037003/just-10-pe...

Phillipharryt2• 7 years ago

You realise you're arguing against fundamental economics right? The convenience of paid services is a product, literally all products have a value so if you price it right then people will pay for it. If you somehow were able to price discriminate perfectly then you could completely remove piracy.

stornetn• 7 years ago

a wise businessperson would see this as a signal that their product offering doesn't actually match demand, and work to fill that demand

This is not necessarily true. It depends entirely on the shape of demand. By way of simplified example, imagine that there are two types of consumers equally distributed: those willing to pay $1000 and those willing to pay $100. Unless you can distinguish at time of payment between these users and charge them different prices (without possibility of resale), you will always be better off forgoing half of the market and charging only the higher price.

It's possible that the business has estimated things incorrectly and is acting suboptimally, but I think it's as least as likely that they are maximizing profits the way we'd expect a rational business operator to do.

csa• 7 years ago

but I think it's as least as likely that they are maximizing profits the way we'd expect a rational business operator to do

I think you grossly overestimate the ability of most large businesses to behave rationally form an organizational profit maximization perspective. It would just as likely or even more likely be something like personal wealth maximization by an employee or group of employees, personal relationship improvement, ego gratification, maintaining/improving social standing, effort minimization, etc.

This is even more so for a monopoly rights holder like La Liga.

cheschire• 7 years ago

To go further, in your example it continues to pay out even if the $100 crowd outnumbers by 8 to 1. So it seems they could forego nearly 90% of the population and still profit more at a $1000 price, unless I’m missing something.

Moodles• 7 years ago

Indeed, this is called inelastic and elastic demand.

Edit: Hacker News, plz, it's not that complex guys :-) one person willing to pay $1000000000000000 is better than 100 people willing to pay $1

FollowSteph3• 7 years ago

Everyone would be willing to buy a Laptop for $5 but pricing one at $500 doesn’t mean demand isn’t matched or the business model is flawed. It costs more than $5 to make a laptop. This is an extreme case but often I see the argument that it’s ok to pirate because it’s too expensive is a flawed argument. Lots of people want things that are cheaper but it isn’t always possible. That being said some companies abuse this and over charge a lot, but nonetheless the argument that free is because it’s too over priced is a flawed argument. Otherwise I could use the same logic and steal a laptop and say it’s he business fault for selling it at $500 instead of $55

YeahSureWhyNot• 7 years ago

not sure about soccer but UFC fights cost 5 to 10 thousand dollars per fight to show PPV at bars. If there are 100 people at the bar then it comes out to 50-100 dollars per person. Thats almost like buying a ticket to see the fight at the actual arena

mpetkevicius• 7 years ago

That figure would likely be significantly lower is bars didn't pirate

dorian-graph3• 7 years ago

If you provide people with easy, convenient, legal methods to consume the content in a way that works for them, for a price they find reasonable, then they overwhelmingly won't resort to illegal means.

I've never liked this sort of argument because it makes it sound like people simply have to view this content, by whatever means necessary, like their life depends on (excuse my slight exaggeration).

You don't have to watch Game of Thrones. Your life really will be fine.

gnomewascool• 7 years ago

You obviously won't die from not watching Game of Thrones.

However, depending on your circle of friends and acquaintances, you might be excluded from social interactions. This can range from not getting occasional references, to not being able to participate in many conversations (during "peak" Game of Thrones a couple of years ago, they were a major and frequent topic in many circles) and hence being side-lined, to even being semi-ostracised ("Why should they hang out with this loser who doesn't even watch Game of Thrones?"). Obviously you could claim that you should get other/better friends, but that's not really realistic, especially if you're already on the border of social isolation.

This will have negative effects on your well-being and even your health (loneliness is a major health risk, on par with obesity and smoking).[0]

[0] https://www.webmd.com/balance/news/20180504/loneliness-rival...

carlmr2• 7 years ago

I'm not watching game of thrones, but I can't quite see the connection here.

The argument doesn't really depend on people finding they have to view something.

They want to view it, so they look at the offering, which is illegal with bad customer experience or legal with better customer experience. They weigh their options according to their preferences, illegal VS legal, ad riddled pages vs smooth experience, having to find out how it works vs having it work in the TV out of the box. And then they will check the price to see what is the better trade off for them.

A good customer experience like Netflix will increase the odds that someone won't go through the hassle. Then if the price is reasonable people won't on average decide for the illegal option.

The problem for Netflix now is that a lot of third parties like Disney retract their content. This raises the price and worsens the UX, because you have to go through multiple subscriptions. This again raises the probability of pirating.

This is all just basic economics, not a moral argument.

C1sc0cat2• 7 years ago

Up to a point a minority of Landlords / Bar owners will take short cuts to boost their revenue - this is not the same as an individual pirating.

There are a lot of shady practices in this industry buying your own beer on the side for example.

whenchamenia• 7 years ago

No, thats pirating, and unlicenced broadcast for profit. Much worse in the eyes of the law.

mikorym• 7 years ago

I find it puzzling why there isn't a Netflix for sports that just shows sports channels. (Or is there?)

Cable providers like to lure people in with sports channels and then force sports to only appear in the top payment tier.

stirlo• 7 years ago

In Australia the dominate cable provider who owns 80+% of sports rights has just launched this (Kayo Sports). Costs 2.5x ($25AUD) a basic Netflix connection ($10AUD) though.

nwellnhof• 7 years ago

Or is there?

DAZN (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAZN) is increasingly popular, at least in Europe.

ThirdFoundation• 7 years ago

In the US this is unlikely to happen because the big 4 sports all want to control their own distribution, TV rights, and streaming. I think they believe there's more money in that method.

chrisweekly• 7 years ago

"It's such a sad waste that all this money has been spent to identify and track down illegal activity when it could have been spent making the overall legal experience good enough that most people wouldn't need to resort to illegality."

^ This. (Same principle applies to myriad other misguided efforts to exercise some form of control.)

dwild3• 7 years ago

the overall legal experience good enough that most people wouldn't need to resort to illegality

This fail when the content is the product. Sure you can improve the delivery method, but at the end of the day, you got to pay for both content and the delivery method, while the illegal market only has to pay for the delivery method.

The VPN market is flourishing, many people pay to get into private torrent trackers and rent seedbox to makes sure they can seed as much as they need to stay there.

Sure pay to get your experience better, but sadly they still need to pay to keep the content as good.

I believed that argument for far too long, that illegal content would happen less if a good enough service would exist. Netflix happened, it did happen, but then they increased the price just a tiny bit, others subscriptions based content appeared, still freakinly cheap, and more and more people got back to illegal content. Their thresold are way too low (and that make sense, the illegal market can deliver a good enough experience for cheaper because they only have to pay for that part of that experience, which is minimal in the actual entertainment).

I'm pretty sure most people pay more in fast food than in entertainment content each month.

latexr2• 7 years ago

The VPN market is flourishing, many people pay to get into private torrent trackers and rent seedbox to makes sure they can seed as much as they need to stay there.

If there was a legal method which worked as well as the illegal one (including quantity and offline capabilities) and cost the same as the VPN / seedbox, I doubt most would stay with the illegal content.

Many would never switch because they stick with the illegal content for ideological reasons (“information wants to be free”, “I don’t want to give money to The Man”), but those you’ll never get money from either way.

I believed that argument for far too long, that illegal content would happen less if a good enough service would exist. Netflix happened, it did happen, but then they increased the price just a tiny bit, others subscriptions based content appeared, still freakinly cheap, and more and more people got back to illegal content.

Netflix worked to reduce piracy because you felt they had everything. Now they don’t, and everything is split across several streaming services which you have to pay for individually. For many ex-pirates, it’s gotten to the point where consuming content legally has devolved (again) to be more cumbersome than doing so illegally.

squarefoot• 7 years ago

This is absolutely true, but also absolutely incompatible with our current universally accepted way of doing business which is the pursuit of maximum profits with zero consideration on moral issues. They will rather shovel money on clunky inferior but restrictive technologies, plus lawyers, if doing so would allow them to sell the product at a higher price most won't find reasonable, de facto encouraging piracy.

crummy• 7 years ago

I'd like to know how someone found out it was recording. Wireshark after noticing unusual bandwidth usage? Decompiling an APK?

slang800• 7 years ago

Here's the original article, which goes into much greater detail than the summary on the Verge: https://www.eldiario.es/tecnologia/Liga-Futbol-microfono-tel...

Sadly neither article investigates how effective this technology was, or how many bars actually got caught as a result of the malware in this app.

egd• 7 years ago

Someone I met tried to figure out how to actually legally stream the NBA playoffs recently - apparently there's basically no way to do so without an existing cable subscription or without paying for the entire season. I'm guessing the licensing structure around all of that would make the US tax code look readable, but the result is that it's effectively impossible to decide you want to watch a specific game on a computer and give someone money to do so on a one-off basis.

xnyan• 7 years ago

It’s so much easier to stream the NBA finals from a pirate site than it is to pay - if there even is a way to pay. I’m looking at waiting 10 days for a cable installer and at least 50 a month plus multiple calls to setup and then cancel to watch the one event I want to watch via cable, or 2 clicks and an ad-free 1080p 60 fps stream on my browser. I’m not saying piracy is legal or moral, but the difference in cost benefit effort and value is so extreme I don’t know how you can realistically expect someone who knows all the options to chose cable.

fourmii• 7 years ago

Really, how about just signing up to the NBA League Pass? Sure it's expensive, but it doesn't need cable installation, just watch it from basically any internet accessible device.

pgm8705• 7 years ago

You could sign up for YouTubeTV, Hulu, SlingTV, etc. I'm not saying the cost is worth it for just a few basketball games, but it definitely is easy to get access.

brewdad2• 7 years ago

Streaming "cable" providers (Sling, Youtube TV, Playstation Vue, etc.)can get you up and running in minutes and usually come with a 7 day free trial. It doesn't solve every issue with trying to get legal, but it at least solves the "sit around all day for the installer to show up" problem.

mstade• 7 years ago

I'm currently watching game seven of the Stanley cup final from a questionable source, simply because I have no way of doing so legally in my current locale. I would gladly pay for the privilege of watching a high definition stream of this game, but I have no reasonable means of doing so. VPN might work, but I have never had much luck with this in the past. Oh well, don't take my money then..

gvggf2• 7 years ago

I pay for an F1TV subscription. The service and app (tata communications) are so bad, I use a pirate stream to actually watch the races :S

askafriend• 7 years ago

You can use YouTube TV. It's $50 a month.

https://tv.youtube.com

weka• 7 years ago

Fubo is $55 and Sling is $35-55. Disney+ will soon start charging...

And it starts to add up and we're back to where we started.

Also, I believe Disney+ will fail because there are not enough Disney diehards who want a subscription specifically for Disney shows. Disney shows get watched because "oh, cool, they have Disney."

Ergo, they don't go looking for it.

notyourwork2• 7 years ago

Shazam-like technology used to identify bars illegally streaming soccer games

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