New High Court Order Forces UK ISPs to Block More “illegal” Footy Streams

The English Premier League has won a new High Court Order in London this week that will require broadband ISPs in the United Kingdom to block servers that are hosting “illegal streams” of its football matches, specifically those involving the entire 2017/18 Premier League season.

An existing blocking order for this already exists, although it only applied for the final two months of the 2016/17 season and the new order is effectively an extension of that approach for the new season. The EPL claims that the original order was “highly effective” and succeeded in limiting access to 5,000 servers (IP addresses), which disrupted live streams on various copyright infringing websites and modified Kodi boxes etc.

Kevin Plumb, Premier League Director of Legal Services, said:

“This blocking Order is a game-changer in our efforts to tackle the supply and use of illicit streams of our content,” said Premier League Director of Legal Services, Kevin Plumb. “It will allow us to quickly and effectively block and disrupt the illegal broadcast of Premier League football via any means, including so called ‘pre-loaded Kodi boxes’.

The protection of our copyright, and the investment made by our broadcast partners, is hugely important to the Premier League and the future health of English football.

The ability that clubs have to develop and acquire talented players, to build and improve stadiums, and to support communities and schools is all predicated on being able to market, sell and protect commercial rights.

We are pleased the Courts have recognised this with the granting of this significant blocking Order.”

However the blocks imposed by broadband ISPs (e.g. BT, Virgin Media, Sky Broadband, Plusnet, TalkTalk and EE) are only effective when the end-user doesn’t know how to circumvent them by using a Virtual Private Network (VPN), Proxy Server or other method. Similarly the blocked servers usually re-emerge in new locations, although the court order allows for additional blocks to be imposed as that happens and on goes the game of whack-a-mole.