6 Questions About IPTV
On social networks and elsewhere on the internet, there is no shortage of offers for IPTV and the boxes needed to receive it. Users are numerous, even more so since the COVID-19 pandemic.
But what are IPTV services really, and what are the risks?
What is IPTV?
IPTV stands for Internet Protocol Television.
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It is a streamed transmission that uses the internet to deliver television channels, shows, sporting events and more to the viewer. All you need to access IPTV is a simple internet connection, a box and a subscription.
How is it different from other ways of receiving television?
The traditional ways of broadcasting television are fibre-optic cable, satellite or a simple antenna. However, these methods do not let viewers control what they watch. They must follow the schedule set by the channels if they want to watch the shows on offer.
With IPTV, it is possible to watch shows on a delayed basis, which allows much greater flexibility.
So is IPTV legal or not?
IPTV is a technology, a protocol, that provides access to on-demand television. As such, IPTV is neutral.
SVOD (Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc.) is a form of IPTV. Services such as Hulu or YouTube TV are also legal IPTV services.
These legal IPTV services are those that comply with regulations and hold the broadcasting rights to multimedia content on the internet. To access these services, you generally need a paid subscription.
IPTV should therefore not be confused with IPTV piracy.
What is illegal IPTV?
Illegal IPTV comes from resellers who pirate the signal broadcast by TV channels and make it available to consumers.
These resellers therefore do not hold the rights to the content they broadcast.
Because pirate resellers do not pay for rights, this explains the low price of illegal IPTV.
How can you tell a legal IPTV offer from a pirate one?
- In general, prices should raise a red flag. An IPTV subscription often costs very little — about ten euros or dollars a month for several hundred channels and packages. An equivalent legal offer with the same packages would probably cost 5 to 10 times more. Some illegal services are even free.
- Sometimes, payment in bitcoin or another cryptocurrency is required, which is probably the most obvious sign of illegality.
- An offer that includes a very large number of international channels (because of regional locking, legal IPTV offers are usually limited)
- A large number of aggressive pop-ups on the site
- No head office address, or a head office located in countries where illegal IPTV is tolerated or lightly punished, such as countries of the Maghreb or Central Asia
What are the risks of illegal IPTV?
The technical risk
Any use of a pirate service always carries technical risks. The risk of viruses or personal data collection, in particular, is very real with illegal IPTV.
The financial risk
To pay, you must provide your banking information.
- You are therefore not safe from the theft of your details and their malicious use.
- It is also possible that the service sold does not match what you think you bought.
Since the head offices of companies offering illegal IPTV are often located in countries where it is difficult to take legal action, and since you bought an illegal service anyway, you have no legal recourse if you find yourself in this kind of situation.
The legal risk
Different countries have different regulations, so the legal risk will vary.
- In France, the ARCOM monitors and penalizes the use of illegal IPTV services.
- The United Kingdom penalizes illegal IPTV on the basis of the 2017 law (Digital Economy Act)
- The United States relies on the well-known Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
In most countries, the user of an illegal IPTV service becomes an accomplice to intellectual property offences and therefore risks prosecution — exactly as with illegal streaming and downloading.
The reseller, for their part, is clearly in the wrong – this is a failure to respect intellectual property, and counterfeiting.
Some legal experts are also beginning to look at the subject from the standpoint of unfair competition.
If it is illegal, why are there so many offers?
- On Kijiji-type sites, the listings are countless.
The company does not check listings beforehand, which allows many resellers to create listings for illegal services. If a listing is reported, Kijiji will remove it (after 24 hours), but nothing prevents the user from creating a new one. Even if a user is banned, they can very easily create a new account on the platform; the process is extremely simple and fast. - On eBay, listings have been filtered beforehand for some time and are therefore less numerous. Even so, since the filter is not perfect, the site still publishes listings for illegal IPTV services.
- As for Facebook groups, many are located in countries where legislation on illegal IPTV is very lax or even nonexistent (such as the countries of the Maghreb, where legal IPTV does not exist). Their descriptions are also rather vague and the groups present themselves as, for example, “IPTV discussion” groups. Since IPTV is a technology, it is hard to report groups with titles like these.
- Most sales are in fact made by private message.
- Other illegal IPTV listings are found on Facebook Marketplace. In principle, Facebook’s terms of use do not allow this type of listing, but they are not filtered beforehand and so often escape Facebook’s vigilance.
Even so, if the groups and the posts on Marketplace are reported to Facebook, they will be removed; but to do this, the rights holder must monitor the networks to spot them and report them in order to request their removal.
Join us on May 15 for our next article, and learn how to fight illegal IPTV.
