Punishment for using dodgy Fire Stick as world’s largest illegal sports streaming platform is shut down
The world's largest illegal sports streaming platform, Streameast, has been shut down following a year-long investigation in a move that's sure to be met with dismay for many who like watching 3pm football games from the comfort of their own home.
While the blackout is meant to protect lower league clubs whose fans might otherwise stay in watching the football on TV even Prince William thinks it's 'irritating'.
Alongside the annoyance of the sport you can't see is the sport you can see as long as you pay several expensive subscriptions to make sure you're covered whichever channel your team is on.
Illegal streaming offers a way round that, letting you watch whatever's on without paying just as long as you don't mind the occasional popups, intermittent picture quality and the risk of you accidentally downloading god-knows-what onto your device.
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Streameast was one of the most popular illegal sports streaming platforms in the world, with 1.6 billion visits in the past year, but it's all come crashing down thanks to an investigation which has resulted in two men being arrested in Egypt and raids seizing cash, credit cards and devices.
Speaking of devices, many of the people who may or may not have been watching Streameast could have been using a dodgy Fire Stick to do it, with a recent study finding over half of Brits watching pirated content using an Amazon device, and that's something which can land you in trouble if you're caught.
You're probably not in as much trouble as the men arrested over Streameast being brought down who've been detained on suspicion of copyright infringement, but you can still have your own chunk of legal trouble.
What is the punishment for using a dodgy Fire Stick?
Owning a dodgy Fire Stick, one that's been jailbroken so you can watch other things with it, is not illegal until you start using it to get around paywalls and watch content without forking over some money.
But you probably wouldn't be jailbreaking your Fire Stick unless you were planning on using it for things it couldn't normally do.
Watching illegal content puts you in violation of the Fraud Act 2006, namely Section 11 which covers 'obtaining services dishonestly' and includes 'knowing the services are made available on the basis that payment has been, is being or will be made for or in respect of them or that they might be; and avoids or intends to avoid payment in full or in part'.
In simpler terms, that's 'you know you had to pay for this and found a way around it'.
Breaking this law could land you behind bars for up to 12 months, though the people who'd catch you would really rather you knocked it on the head before it came to that.
The authorities would rather go after the people doling out the devices and content, such as in the case of Halifax man Sunny Kanda who was jailed for two years for selling dodgy Fire Sticks and Thirsk man Stephen Woodward who got three years behind bars for running a trio of illegal streaming sites.
Kieron Sharp, chairman of the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT), has warned that people watching illegal content could end up getting caught in investigations and face punishment themselves.
He said they 'would rather not criminalise the end user', explaining that gangs running illegal streams often had customer databases which meant the authorities could learn who'd been watching things without paying.
Sharp said their first course of action would be to contact the people on the list and tell them 'what you are doing is breaking the law and you will have to stop', a warning best not ignored.
He said: "It would be a discussion for everybody involved in the business to see if that is an area that we would want to go down.
"It could happen, it really could. I would never say to any of the consumers through the messaging that we do that they are not going to get prosecuted because that just isn’t correct."
So if you're told the game is up then you're best advised not to keep illegally streaming or you face a much more serious punishment.
Joe Harker