pretty sure you’re right — but from the article

> A key component of an ongoing anti-piracy campaign in the UK includes sensitizing the public to the risk of being convicted for fraud offenses carrying prison sentences of up to 10 years. Not for getting involved in the supply or sale of pirate streams, but for simply watching them.

Pretty sure the premise of the article is to discredit “scare tactics” being used to claim otherwise by interested parties.

I’m a big fan of copyright. Not a big fan of scaremongering.

As mentioned in the article, in the UK it is nominally a crime to watch a pirate stream in order to avoid paying for the paid version of the stream. The relevant law is [1]. It is also illegal to distribute such a stream. Such streams are referred to as “illegal streams.”

[1] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2006/35/notes/division/...

(Regarding torrents, perhaps the most popular pirating medium...) In general, torrent users are consumers and distributors. Technically you can disable seeding, but peers can detect this and many will stop sharing with you.

The law says what it says, without regard for your semantics.