The Premier League’s most powerful weapon against piracy is back − and it’s more effective than ever
The Premier League’s so-called ‘Super Block’ has been renewed for the forthcoming 2019/20 season, according to a new report.
The Super Block is a High Court blocking order that requires the UK’s major internet service providers to block and disrupt servers that host illegal streams of the Premier League’s matches in real time, throughout an entire season.
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It was in place for the 2017/18 Premier League season, and again during the 2018/19 season just gone. According to TorrentFreak, the High Court renewed the injunction on July 15 2019, which means these stream blocking efforts can continue for at least one more season.
However, the move is yet to be formally announced.
The Premier League confirmed to Trusted Reviews that the Super Block enabled it to block or disrupt more than 200,000 illegal live streams of matches during the 2018/19 season.
That’s more than the organisation managed to block over the course of the 2017/18 season, when it fell short of the 200,000 mark.
This suggests that the Premier League’s crackdown on piracy is getting more and more effective.
“Super Block … is proving an increasingly efficient way of blocking illegal streams at the server level,” William Bush, the executive director of the Premier League, said at the Westminster Media Forum (WMF) earlier this month.
“Piracy can be done and gone before large, slow-moving bureaucracies like the tech giants have bothered to do anything about it. With Super Block, we can move really quickly, and the good thing about that is just the risk of disruption of the feed means that consumers will tend to go to a legal offering if they can get it.
“Because if there’s a 15-20-30-40-50% risk that the match is going to go down, then they’re going to be hacked off about it.”
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TorrentFreak’s report adds that UEFA has obtained permission from the High Court to block illegal streams of Champions League, Europa League, Nations League, UEFA Super Cup, UEFA European Qualifiers and UEFA Friendlies matches until the end of the 2021 season.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
