Vietnam's age-old piracy issue might cost the country its World Cup telecast rights.
Within three days of the World Cup's opening ceremony on June 14, Vietnam's Television (VTV) — the exclusive telecast rights holder of Word Cup 2018 matches in Russia — has found 700 cases of illegal streaming of the matches online, VietnamNet reports. More than 300 of these copyright infringement cases have been handled.
According to Phan Anh Tuan, a lawyer from Phan Law office, these types of broadcasting rights infringement are often committed by Vietnamese streamers through three methods.
The first method — which is the most popular — involves installing a third-party application or software that allows users to illegally stream international channels for free.
The second type is through illegally transmitting the satellite signal from VTV and other authorized channels to a web platform. According to Tuan, on the day of the opening ceremony, there were 28 websites that used this method to illegally broadcast the tournament.
The third type takes a more grassroots direction by creating YouTube and Facebook accounts disguised as VTV affiliates to live stream the matches.
According to the deal between VTV and FIFA, VTV has the rights to broadcast the World Cup matches on all of its platforms. The satellite network has also shared the broadcast rights with HTV and Viettel TV.
Piracy has been a common phenomenon in football streaming in Vietnam for years and many violators have been able to get away with it in the past. However, for this year's World Cup, Vietnamese football fans might face greater consequences if this issue persists. According to VTV, FIFA could revoke the telecast rights altogether if the piracy doesn't stop.
"Once there is a violation, especially one that causes the signals from Vietnam to travel outside the nation's geographic border, we [will violate] the contract and FIFA has all the right to revoke our broadcasting rights," a VTV official said.
Amidst the fear of losing the World Cup broadcasting rights, VTV has sent a letter to the Ministry of Information and Communications calling for help. Moreover, a group of anonymous "knights" have been allegedly helping the national network expose and catch the copyright violators.
[Photo via Bao Van Hoa]
