Part of the online sports fan community cried Monday when two websites popular for pirating illegal streams of live sporting events posted a message – apparently from their anonymous owner – saying they would “take a break from live.” streaming.”
Visitors to sites called Methstreams and Crackstreams were instead encouraged to join an existing Discord community for further updates. A sign of the sites’ popularity, more than 80,000 accounts were part of the Discord group – which has existed at least since 2022 – as of Monday afternoon.
Methstreams already gained attention in November, when ESPN’s Adam Schefter reposted a clip of NFL action which had originated on the site (he had retrieved the video from another poster, rather than from the now defunct service).
Two weeks ago, the owner of Methstreams told Discord members that one of their domain names had been locked amid the ongoing battle between rights holders and those circumventing distribution deals. Around the same time, the anti-piracy organization Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) announced that it had helped shut down hundreds of websites, many based in Vietnam, that had attracted more than 800 million visits over the past year.
A representative for ACE did not respond to a request for comment on whether these areas were part of its crackdown.
Media companies pay billions to obtain exclusive rights to broadcast live sports, and advertisers, in turn, pay billions to reach the fans who watch them. The NFL’s current media contracts, for example, are worth more than $125 billion; THE NBAIt is most recent ride worth $77 billion. Illicit streams often originate from foreign streams, meaning that broadcasts (and advertisements) are often not intended for American audiences. In severe cases, this loss of revenue could threaten the solvency of sports organizers and the events they organize.
A report from piracy tracking firm VFT estimates that 17 million people watched the 2024 Super Bowl on illegally distributed streams.
Although Methstreams and Crackstreams have not explained why they were removed, one plausible reason is that they are accused of copyright infringement on live sports broadcasts and that online service providers (OSPs) have acted in accordance with their legal obligations to order withdrawals.
America’s professional sports leagues have limited tools to combat illegal streaming, which, as the Harvard Business Review recently noted, costs the global sports industry an estimated $28 billion in annual revenue. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is the primary federal privacy law. However, this is from 1998, a time when many people accessed the Internet via dial-up modems and live streaming was not available.
According to the leagues, the DMCA is too slow in that it has a notice and takedown process that is not suitable for live sports streaming. The bulk of the process involves the content creator notifying an OSP (such as YouTube or Facebook) that they are broadcasting an illegal stream. The OSP is then obligated to investigate and, if necessary, take action, but hours or days may pass before a stream is removed.
With live sports content, the action is arguably needed within seconds, or at least minutes, since the value of the content diminishes over time. The UFC, along with the NBA and NFL, urged lawmakers and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to consider measures that would require PSOs to act more quickly and engage in more sophisticated verification measures before allowing a user to live stream.
Blocking access to streams distributed from abroad can be even more difficult and often requires intervention from the Internet service providers hosting or distributing said content.
A recent study carried out in France revealed that more than half of the viewers of a Ligue 1 match accessed the match through illegal means. Ben Morel, outgoing CEO of Professional Football League media, described the hack as having reached a “dangerous tipping point” for the sport. French laws allow rights holders to require technology companies to take steps to prevent serious violations of their broadcast rights.
When Google was asked to participate in such a campaign last summer, it reportedly expressed its intention to comply while emphasizing that the impact of the effort would likely be negligible.
Worldwide, visits to unlicensed global video sites have increased 12% since 2019 despite attempts to slow their spread, according to anti-piracy analytics platform Muso.
Unlicensed sites can profit by signing their own advertising deals or collecting valuable visitor data. Some services have also attempted to charge subscribers for access to private portals.
It remains unclear whether law enforcement or another motivation triggered Monday’s announcement, as the owner of Methstreams and Crackstreams also announced a comeback.
While many users of the websites publicly praised the operator for the service it provided, commenters were quick to turn their attention to the remaining site offering the best way to continue watching unlicensed game streams .