PARIS: A day after Saudi Arabia’s plans to host the next Supercoppa were thrown up in the air after Serie A took legal action over TV piracy (read beoutQ) in the kingdom, Qatari broadcaster beIN Sports scored a major legal victory. A French court ruled Thursday that Saudi-headquartered satellite distributor Arabsat was complicit in the beoutQ piracy operation.
Arabsat has had a templated response to repeated accusations over the last two years that it was distributing pirated content from beoutQ – the world’s most notorious pirate broadcasting operation – blanket denial.
As per a beIN press release issued Thursday, “the purpose of beIN’s case was to establish in a court of law that, despite its denials, Arabsat has been carrying beoutQ’s pirate broadcasts”.
The press release said that the French court ruling had endorsed the accuracy of beIN’s technical reports, which proved Arabsat’s involvement in distributing beoutQ.
The ruling said: “The reports conclude that the beoutQ channels were available on June 18 and 24, 2018 on frequency 11919 MHz H and frequency 12207 MHz V via the Badr-4 satellite, operated by Arabsat.”
beIN said that it brought the case in the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris because it has been denied legal recourse in Saudi Arabia where Arabsat and beoutQ are based.
“Arabsat has ignored literally hundreds of legal take-down notices from international broadcasters and rights-holders,” beIN noted.
Yousef Al-Obaidly, CEO of the beIN’s parent organisation, beIN Media Group, said that the ruling of the Paris court “shows that even if we are illegally denied access to justice in Saudi Arabia, we will use every means possible to hold beoutQ and Arabsat to account for their daily theft of rights-holders’ IP”.
In the release, beIN noted that it had concluded that all of the 17 matches of the FIFA Women’s World Cup played so far have been illegally broadcast on beoutQ.
This follows on from the pirating of all 64 matches of the men’s FIFA World Cup held in Russia.
Coming to the Serie A, Luigi De Siervo, the new CEO of Italy’s top flight league, said illegal transmissions by the rogue channel BeoutQ were putting a third of its international TV rights, worth about €450 million, at risk.
“Serie A is next to belN SPORTS against BeoutQ in the fight against piracy. For Serie A this is a fundamental area, from which about a third of international TV rights arrive. We have already taken legal action, we will start shortly to make a strong campaign towards our Government and other Governments to bring the BeoutQ phenomenon to the total reduction,” said De Servio.
Marco Brunelli, De Siervo’s predecessor, had signed a €7 million deal with Saudi Arabia for the Supercoppa – played between the winners of the Italian League and the country’s cup competition – to be held in Jeddah twice over four years.
At the time of the SuperCoppa in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in January, the CEO of belN Sports Yousef Al-Obaidly had said: “Among all the countries in the world that you could have chosen to host your race, you have chosen the only country that supports the theft even of your contents on an industrial scale. I ask if it is appropriate to proceed with the Super Cup match in Jeddah.”
