Despite all her efforts FIFA, Internet users continue to watch World Cup matches with the help of pirated live streams.
In fact, millions of people have already chosen to use pirated streams, with some games being watched by over half a million viewers, according to report of TorrentFreak.
According to the publication, Viaccess-Orca, a French-Israeli content protection company that handles website shutdown notices, has become about 2.000 requests to close pages that host or simply connect game to streams.
FIFA had warned before starting the Cup, but even at the start of it, saying that if someone illegally relayed the games they would stop him immediately at any time of the day, as the streams leave stigmas. Even so, however, there are many choices out there for those who really want to find a game.
“The success rate varies by content platform, but in general, we've managed to download 35% of streaming links before the game ends. I think this is a great success rate, especially compared to the websites they have direct download,” said David Leporini, vice president of marketing for Viaccess-Orca.
While the number is indeed decent, it is still far from the 100% that FIFA would like. However, the whole process is complicated by the fact that many websites do not publish the links to the streams until shortly before the start of the game. And by the time these links are detected from the moment the game starts, their content is recognized as illegal, and the process is set to go as planned, the game may already be over.
“For the first ten days we have sent about 150 takedown notices to Facebook pages and Twitter. Across all shared content platforms, we measured a success rate of around 51% in removing links from Facebook pages,” Leporini told TorrentFreak.