LONDON: Close on the heels of beIN SPORTS providing damning third party evidence of how Riyadh-based pirate TV channel beoutQ was acting in consort with state owned satellite provider Arabsat to steal and rebroadcast signals beamed by the Qatari sportscaster into the kingdom, the legal fight to protect intellectual property has intensified.
The French Football League (LFP) and English Premier League declared Friday that after multiple complaints to the Saudi authorities were ignored with impunity, the matter has now been escalated to the European Commission. Both leagues have written to the Directorate General for Trade at the EC seeking support to investigate beoutQ and demanding that pressure be put on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to shut down the pirate channel, which has been distributing millions of dollars’ worth of premium sports content.
The LFP has also written to Arabsat to demand that it prevents beoutQ from using its satellites to broadcast stolen content. In addition, the LFP said it is examining all legal options, recourse and remedies that are at its disposal.
Pay-television broadcaster beIN Sports is a key rights partner of the LFP and in May extended its domestic Ligue 1 deal for the four campaigns spanning 2020-21 to 2023-24.
Didier Quillot, LFP executive director, stated: “Last January we participated in the creation of the Association for the Protection of Sporting Programs (APPS) with the broadcasters, the professional leagues and the sports’ federal bodies. Pirate broadcasts attack directly at the economic heart of the sport and we must unite in our struggle against this practice. We ask Arabsat and Saudi Arabia to intervene to stop the piracy of our contents.”
In a related development, the Premier League issued the following statement: “The Premier League has written to the European Commission as part of the Sports Rights Owners Coalition. This is just one of the measures we are taking to address this very serious issue. We operate a significant anti-piracy programme in a range of countries to protect the copyright of the League and our clubs.
“Like all content creators and rights owners, our business model is predicated on the ability to market and sell protected rights and we will take all available action to support the investment made in the League by our legitimate broadcast partners.”
Meanwhile, Inside World Football reports that in a bid to shut beoutQ down, beIN has teamed up with FIFA, the Premier League, LFP, UEFA, Spain’s LaLiga, the International Olympics Committee (IOC), the All England Lawn Tennis Club, the United States Tennis Association, Tennis Australia, the American National Basketball Association (NBA), as well as anti-piracy body the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA), to form a lobby group.
The move comes after Qatari broadcasting giant beIN Media Group, parent company of beIN Sports, revealed on Thursday that it had secured “independent and definitive confirmation” from Cisco Systems, NAGRA and Overon of beoutQ’s signal theft and illegal distribution of its live coverage of games from the opening weekend of both the Premier League and Ligue 1.
“This technical evidence establishes beyond any doubt the involvement of Riyadh-based Arabsat in the most widespread piracy of sports broadcasting that the world has ever seen,” beIN asserted.
Having stolen every single game of the recent FIFA World Cup in Russia, the spectre of Saudi piracy returned with renewed vigour this weekend. Two of European football’s high profile leagues – the English Premier League and France’s Ligue 1 – kicked off their 2018-2019 seasons but their broadcasts were, once again, stolen and distributed illegally across Saudi Arabia.
Starting with the Premier League’s curtain-raiser of Manchester United v Leicester City through to Manchester City v Arsenal, all 10 of the Premier League’s games were illegally broadcast live by beoutQ and Arabsat; while six of the 10 opening games of Ligue 1, including PSG v Caen, were also stolen. The pirate channel also brazenly promoted coverage of upcoming games it will show from LaLiga and the Bundesliga, both which start in the coming weeks, as a sign of beoutQ’s endless pipeline of piracy.
beoutQ’s audacious announcement that it was back to its worst this weekend coincided with the latest incontrovertible evidence and reports presented by technology provider Cisco, NAGRA (Swiss-based provider of pay-TV security solutions) and Overon (a leader in innovation technology for broadcast services), that explain in technical detail how Arabsat satellites have been, and still are, transmitting beoutQ’s pirate channels.
Since August 2017, beoutQ has been stealing the broadcast feed of some of the most internationally-renowned sports brands and rights holders in the world, pirating everything from the Olympic Games, Formula 1 and Wimbledon tennis, to the UEFA Champions League, the English Premier League and LaLiga. Every single game of the recent FIFA World Cup 2018 in Russia was broadcast illegally in Saudi Arabia by beoutQ, making it one of the most pirated sports events in history and prompting – in a unique step – the governing body of world football to call for legal action in Saudi Arabia.
Despite demands from bodies across sport for Arabsat to end its support of this piracy, the Riyadh-based satellite provider has adamantly refused to do so, even though it has the ability to simply switch off beoutQ’s transmissions on Arabsat satellites. Indeed, before the Saudi-led blockade against Qatar, Arabsat routinely switched off pirate operations in accordance with international law, yet the political motivations behind its refusal to end beoutQ’s theft of Qatar-headquartered beIN SPORTS are clear. In addition to pirating the world’s most valuable sports content, it is no coincidence that beoutQ also distributes a stream of anti-Qatar propaganda.
Arabsat is a major regional satellite operator headquartered in Saudi Arabia; it is owned by the governments of the Arab League and its largest shareholder is Saudi Arabia; and Arabsat’s CEO is a Saudi national. The fact that beoutQ itself – on its own Facebook and other social media channels – lists the specific Arabsat frequencies on which it is available makes a mockery of Arabsat’s recent statements that beoutQ has never been transmitted by the satellite provider.
The latest reports by Cisco, NAGRA and Overon follow a quite remarkable and coordinated outburst of statements, disinformation and abuse directed at the global broadcaster beIN SPORTS – together with other parties that called for an end to Saudi piracy, such as UEFA and the governing bodies of world tennis – by the Saudi Ministry of Media in recent months, denying that beoutQ is based in Saudi Arabia. This is despite overwhelming evidence placing beoutQ firmly in Saudi Arabia, including the fact that the beoutq.se website is geo-blocked to Saudi Arabia and satellite subscriptions must be validated from a Saudi IP address; its subscriptions are priced in Saudi riyals only; and its channels carry advertising for numerous Saudi brands. Indeed, even the name “beoutQ” is manifestly intended to mean “be out Qatar” – a reference to the Saudi-led blockade against Qatar. In response, Saudi Arabia has bizarrely alleged the channel is based in Colombia and Cuba.
While the Saudi government asserts that it has made “relentless efforts” to combat piracy, the reality is that beoutQ set-top boxes have been widely and openly sold across Saudi Arabia from dealers regulated by the Saudi regulatory authority (GCAM), including at dealers which have been openly publicized by beoutQ, and beoutQ’s pirate channels continue to be viewed in cafes, bars, hotels, restaurants, airport lounges, public places and in homes right across the country. Early this year, for the first time in more than 10 years, the US Government placed Saudi Arabia on its 2018 Special 301 Watch List, noting concerns over the deteriorating environment for the protection of intellectual property.
Tom Keaveny, managing director of beIN Media Group, MENA said: “The political games being played by Arabsat, beoutQ and its Saudi backers in stealing our content have consequences that affect the future of world sport, not just beIN SPORTS. That is why the international sports community – from FIFA to UEFA, Formula 1 to world tennis, together with a host of other global broadcasters – have all taken a stand and publicly condemned this Saudi-based piracy. beoutQ and its Saudi backers seem to think they can operate beyond the reproach of the rule of law and the international norms that everyone else respects.”
Sophie Jordan, executive director of Legal Affairs – General Legal Counsel of beIN Media Group said: “The evidence is irrefutable:- the illegal channel beoutQ is backed by Saudi nationals and openly promoted by leading Saudi figures; it is operating with the tacit consent of the Saudi government and its World Cup pirate feeds were viewed on public screens under the responsibility of Saudi authorities across the country; it is broadcast on the Riyadh-based satellite provider Arabsat; on a daily basis it is carrying out – in broad daylight – a mass-scale theft of highly valuable intellectual property rights. It is time for Arabsat to switch off the pirate transmissions it has supported for almost a year; it is time for Arabsat to be made accountable for facilitating the largest pay-tv piracy organization in the history of pay-TV.”
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