- A French anti-piracy group has convinced a Paris court to order ISPs to block eight IPTV platforms.
- The IPTV services that were blocked offered access to thousands of channels, movies, and TV shows.
- No French ISP expressed any “internet censorship” concerns, so the was no dispute or opposition.
A Paris tribunal has published a decision to approve ALPA’s request to order ISPs (Internet Service Providers) in France to block some popular pirate IPTV domains. ALPA is an anti-piracy group that represents several rightsholders in the country. For this case, it united forces with other entities such as the union of cinema producers, the association of independent producers, TF1 (Television Francaise), Canal+, and the French Ministry of Culture.
The listed ISPs are ‘Bouygues Telecom,’ ‘S.A.S. Free’, ‘S.A. Orange’., ‘SFR Fibre,’ and the ‘Societe Francaise du Radiotelephone.’ None of these ISPs expressed any dispute or opposition to the demand of ALPA, so the following domains will have to be blocked now:
- iptv-teli.com
- king365-tv.com, king365-tv.cf, king365tv.com
- ddnc.us
- platinumiptv.pro
- premium-itv.com
- primeplus.tv
- xtream.ws
- tvservice.pro
King365 and Teli are two relatively large IPTV service platforms that offer illegal access to French networks’ broadcasts. According to the ALPA analysis presented in court as a convincing factor, King365 offered 2,847 TV channels, 1,734 films, and 360 TV series.
Teli is a tad bit higher, offering access to 4,827 TV channels, 4,588 movies, and 271 TV series. These humongous database sizes make any legit streaming service pale in comparison, so it’s no wonder so many people choose to pay for subscriptions to pirate IPTV platforms instead.
As ALPA comments in its relevant announcement, the amount of content provided for such a small fee should be enough on its own to indicate to the end-users that these services are illegal. While this is a statement made in a realistic context, without a doubt, deception and fraud cannot be ruled out when considering how these IPTV platforms are promoted.
The illegal services themselves lie outside France’s territory, so the court’s decision only concerns access to the domains from within the country. The ruling came out on December 17, 2020, and the ISPs were expected to implement the blocking by January 2, 2021. The blocking action duration was set to 18 months, but it may be renewed when the expiration time comes.
