Seattle Seahawks cornerback Tariq Woolen, who reportedly earns over $1 million a year, used pirate streaming site MethStreams to watch his own team play. This revelation came from Woolen's Instagram story, where he shared an image clearly displaying the site's URL. While Woolen seemed unconcerned when the news reached him, the NFL, which actively combats piracy, will likely take a different view.
Last year, the NFL asked the U.S. Government’s Patent and Trademark Office to help tackle live-streaming piracy.
Together with the NBA and UFC, the football league asked the government to make DMCA takedown requests more effective.
NFL argued that when it comes to live sports streaming, long delays render takedown requests practically useless, as most of the value of live sports content lies in its real-time nature.
Ideally, online services should be required by law to remove infringing content “instantaneously or near-instantaneously”, the sports companies argued. This includes social media platforms, where pirate streams are often openly advertised.
“Pirates have shown increasing sophistication in terms of the quality of their livestreams and now display livestreams in a way that often renders the final product indistinguishable from the legitimate feed,” NFL, NBA, and UFC explained.
“To garner maximum viewership of the pirated content, enterprising pirates will post ‘advertisements’ on major social media platforms that drive traffic to off-platform sites where people can watch unlawful livestreams of live sports event content without paying a dime.”
The sports leagues stressed that widespread piracy hurts their revenues. This impacts everyone involved in the sport, including the highest-paid athletes. However, that doesn’t mean that these players are unanimously rallying against piracy.
Even some of the sport’s biggest stars, including LeBron James, have reportedly used pirate streaming sites. And this weekend, another player was added to the list after the injured Seattle Seahawks cornerback Tariq Woolen apparently tuned in to Methstreams to watch his own team play.
This was revealed in an Instagram story where Woolen shared an image clearly displaying the streaming site’s URL.