Serie A, Sportian Take Down 4,500 Pirate Streams

Serie A’s anti-piracy guard dog Sportian blocked more than 4,500 attempts to steal and illegally stream the Italian league’s broadcast signal in the first year of their partnership last season.

Broadcast piracy is the biggest threat to top tier football’s sustainability with high rights fee paying broadcasters increasingly demanding that leagues do more to protect their rights.

Sportian’s core weapon in the battle against piracy is its Piracy Guard software that uses a combination of real-time monitoring, AI-driven detection, and human expertise to identify and remove unauthorised streams across social media, illegal websites, and other digital platforms.

Globant Sportian has used the anti-piracy tools originally developed by LaLiga, and enhanced them into a global suite of products used by dozens of leagues, federations and broadcasters worldwide.

“Lega Serie A has a complex and diversified strategy to combat piracy in the most effective ways, leveraging all currently available tools. Through our partnership with Globant Sportian, we’ve taken further steps to protect the investment of our licensees and ensure fans access matches through legal channels,” said Luisella Fusco, Media Operations & Broadcast Director at Lega Serie A.

Co-operation with content platforms – META, YouTube, and TikTok – that provide virtually unregulated homes for illegal streamers, has proved strategically important in enabling the removal of infringing content directly and enforcing broadcast rights protection at scale.

“As sports piracy becomes more sophisticated, the need for proactive strategies and global collaboration has never been greater,” said Pablo lo Giudice, Product Manager for Piracy Guard at Sportian. “Lega Serie A offers some of the most exciting entertainment in sports, and attempts to steal its IP have been significant, but through this partnership we are staying one step ahead.

Insideworldfootball.com