The Spanish authorities have scored points in their fight against illegal streaming. The latter announced this Friday the closure of the illegal streaming application Cristal Azul, the most used channel in the country which broadcast Spanish first and second division matches free of charge to nearly 78,000 users for damage estimated at more than 42 million euros. ‘euros.
The investigation opened following a joint complaint from La Liga and the Movistar television channel, “resulted in the indictment of a 37-year-old man for market and consumer offenses following an assessed fraud to 42,547,104 euros, the blocking and deletion of all channels of the instant messaging application where the matches were broadcast as well as the deletion of the programming code used illicitly”, assures the guard in a press release civil, charged of the file.
“Through the KODI media player, which allows the reproduction of various types of digital media (videos, images and audio) in delayed mode, online or streaming, investigators detected that one of the extensions or “add ons “created by a developer external to the platform, it was possible to watch football matches from the first and second Spanish divisions for free,” summarizes the press release from the authorities.
This operation is a small victory for the president of La Liga, Javier Tebas, in war against illegal streaming which he considers a “theft” that could lead football “to bankruptcy”. La Liga TV rights, domestic and international, represent just over 2 billion euros per season.
In France, the allocation of Ligue 1 TV rights to DAZN has strongly revived the debate on piracy and illegal streaming in recent months.
