So how will the users circumvent this? obfuscation, encryption or VPN?
FUD
VPN may help in this case?
User VPN won't help if they are killing the servers.
My slight worry is that all the streams of the free addons are likely "stolen" from the sources that we pay for on the private subs. Going after the private ones will always be harder (cf. Torrent sites) but if the originating server is the same... That could cause problems?
I'm waiting anxiously for the weekend!
Have any providers commented yet?
I'd love to know the approach they're taking to identify the streams...
It's such a dumb way to handle the problem, when will they ever learn.
There are multiple issues with the current system -
The reality is their antiquated views on broadcasting and controlling the media that people view have gone out the window in the past few years and companies like Sky/BT/Virgin are clutching at anything they can do to stop this modern format of entertainment.
Solution - Start offering pay per view options to every game, if I could pay £3-£4 to watch a Saints game live on demand I'd pay it every weekend, without fail and I wouldn't need to resort to pirating the streams. If 30,000 others Saints fans agree that's £90,000 - £120,000 of revenue from one team that they previously didn't have, open that up over all leagues and competitions and surely they would make more money than the amount they are losing to piracy currently?
Or just keep trying to take down streams, which is effectively a never ending battle that they will lose. It's really not that hard to bounce traffic around and I question the legality of being able to hard-ban a website which might be associated with streaming that provides 99% non pirated streams.
VPN will solve the issue for those of you watching on public streams, by the sounds of it they will be blocking through the ISP not actually taking down the site.
Lets see what happens this weekend then?!