Rising Subscription Prices: What Are the Risks of Using Illegal IPTV?
To continue catching your favorite shows at the start of the school year, you need to reach for your wallet. Amazon on Tuesday announced an upcoming increase in its Prime subscription by more than 40%, which will be particularly necessary for tracking next Ligue 1 season. At the same time, the market leader Netflix is looking for the best formula to impose on its users account sharing, this widespread habit – although forbidden – that allows millions of people to enjoy its programs for free, at the expense of its financial results. Finally, at the beginning of the summer, Canal+ had already announced to its subscribers that it would apply the VAT increase to the price of its various formulas.
As the policies of the major platforms are tightened, more and more consumers are saying that they are willing to go illegal and use illegal IPTV streams to continue enjoying major sporting events and the seventh art without paying a heavy price. And the offers in the social networks are multiplying with the approaching start of the school year and the resumption of sporting competitions.
IPTV is originally a legal technology that makes it easy to receive television over the Internet. Today, with the fragmentation of legal supply and inflation of platform prices, it is often diverted to broadcast programs via pirated software or dedicated applications. For a few tens of euros a year, consumers can do this Access thousands of channels and platforms including Canal+, Prime Video, Netflix or BeInSports, for example. Many private broadcasters also broadcast live sports events and current series free of charge on platforms such as Telegram or Twitter in order to draw the public’s attention to paid IPTV offers.
An illegal practice, but unusual penalties for users
As attractive as it is, this practice is still illegal. Using an IPTV service falls under the Counterfeiting Act, a criminal offense which can be prosecuted under civil law and punishable by imprisonment for several years and the payment of damages to the beneficiaries. Users also run the risk of their provider blocking Internet access.
Despite the lost income, it means for the owners of the rights to sports competitions and television channelsHowever, IPTV has resulted in few penalties for end users. Authorities focus their efforts on Discover the networks that own the servers from which the bouquets of IPTV channels are broadcast and subscription resellers. Several police operations in recent years have also managed to cripple international networks, resulting in flow disruptions for hundreds of thousands of users.
This does not mean that this practice is without risk. Connecting a hacked box to your home network is in progress a risk for personal data users who are not also not safe from a scam when paying for the subscription, which run on unsecured servers and can be used to fund criminal networks. Finally, illegal IPTV users are not immune to having their streams cut before their subscription expires, as France introduced a new legal arsenal last year that allows program rights holders to block websites and services that make pirated content faster spread.
