MUMBAI: Telemundo, the US Spanish-language sports broadcaster owned by Comcast’s NBCUniversal, and UK-based Eleven Sports are the latest networks to join the fight against Saudi Arabia headquartered pirate streaming service BeOutQ, which has with impunity been illegally broadcasting the ongoing FIFA World Cup in the MENA region, the rights for which are with Doha-based beIN Sports.
Telemundo made the accusation in a statement emailed to Bloomberg. “We take intellectual property infringement seriously,” the company said, adding that it is working closely with FIFA to protect its rights.
Eleven Sports also said that its live rights, which don’t include the World Cup, have been pirated by BeOutQ. “This unauthorized streaming of Eleven Sports’ services seriously infringes our intellectual property rights,” a company spokesperson said in an email. “We are looking into this issue and we will take the appropriate course of action.”
Telemundo paid about $600 million for the American Spanish-language rights for the 2018 and 2022 tournaments. It’s unclear how much beIN paid when it bought the rights in 2011.
The moves by Telemundo and Eleven follow on the heels of FIFA accusing BeOutQ of illegally broadcasting the opening games of the World Cup, after which football’s world governing body issued the following statement: “Fifa is aware that a pirate channel named BeoutQ has illegally distributed the opening matches of 2018 FIFA World Cup in the MENA region.
“Fifa takes infringements of its intellectual property very seriously and is exploring all options to stop the infringement of its rights, including in relation to action against legitimate organisations (emphasis ours) that are seen to support such illegal activities.
“We refute that BeOutQ has received any rights from FIFA to broadcast any FIFA event.”
While not saying it outright, the legitimate organisation FIFA is alluding is Riyadh-based satellite provider Arabsat, whose largest shareholder is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Arabsat has been openly retransmitting BeOutQ’s pirated signal of the ongoing World Cup.
For the record, the World Cup piracy is a product of regional politics. The root of the problem lies in the fact that it is beIN Sports that holds media rights for FIFA in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region. BeOutQ sprung up as an in your face pirating TV station with beIN as its chief target in the wake of the declaration by Saudi Arabia (which its allies, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt rubber stamped) in June 2017 that Qatar was sponsoring terrorism in the region. Following the declaration, the Saudi Arabia-led bloc severed diplomatic and transport ties with Doha and imposed an economic blockade on the Gulf state.
After it launched its blockade, Saudi Arabia banned the sale of beIN broadcast boxes and stopped existing customers from renewing subscriptions. Which is what has led to the tournament not being officially broadcast in the country, despite its team having qualified for the World Cup.
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