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The UK’s premier league tv rights are worth a little bit over £1bn/yr. The rights holders are tv companies who also run most of the UK’s domestic telecoms, so t

The UK’s premier league tv rights are worth a little bit over £1bn/yr. The rights holders are tv companies who also run most of the UK’s domestic telecoms, so they lobby incredibly hard and effectively to have pirate match streaming sites blocked.

mitxela 15d ago
There was a movement in the US over the past decade or so for media companies to buy up ISPs for the sole purpose of being able to apply blocking.
- TitaRusell 15d ago
  At least in theory the blocking in EU has to go through a judge. Blocking itself is ofcourse not at all controversial in Europe. Aside from some free speech maximalists people have no problem with shutting down criminal operations.
  - mitxela 15d ago
    How do you know it's illegal if a judge hasn't ruled? In parts of Europe it's illegal to call someone's operations illegal if a judge hasn't ruled it.
    - nottorp 15d ago
      In this case a judge who clearly does not use the internet for anything has ruled.
- lotsofpulp 14d ago
  Comcast (an ISP) purchased NBC Universal in 2013, ATT (also an IPS) purchased Time Warner in 2018. But that was it, and both of those deals ended up being bad for the ISPs, with ATT already divested of Time Warner and Comcast trying to get rid of NBC Universal or whatever is left of it. I do not think blocking websites was a goal in either of those mergers, they were just trying to become big like Apple/Amazon/etc and not just be a dumb pipe like ISPs should be.