Wait, does that also mean bars have to police what people are watching on their phone, otherwise risking big fines?
E.g. I go to the pub, have a drink and watch some random LaLiga match on my phone?
E.g. I go to the pub, have a drink and watch some random LaLiga match on my phone?
In UK/Ireland you can easily identify if the venue in question is paying for the commercial package as it will intermittently display a pint glass symbol in a bottom corner of the screen. Indeed, Sky investigators, who do spot checks, use it to quickly ensure that the pub has a valid pub contract and not a residential contract.
https://www.express.co.uk/showbiz/tv-radio/668952/why-pub-TV...
La Liga are presumably muxing infrasonic audio into their residential streams to try and:
(a) watermark the residential account(s) used to provide the streaming services so they can prosecute the providers
(b) Detect commercial usage of residential accounts used in piracy to prosecute the venues, by listening out via the App.
They could presumably get around GDPR by virtue of the fact they're only listening and recording audio out of human audible range, and only for identification of copyright infringement as per the TOS of the La Liga App.
1. Someone sitting next to you in a bar is playing a match on their phone, but the bar is not.
2. Your phone has the app installed and hears the match.
3. La Liga sues the bar?
They would have higher priority situations where dozens of phones hit at the same time in the same bar.
That seems as if it would be so easy to fake...
I don't know if Sky does it, but Foxtel in Australia, in addition to the pint glass watermark, have a separate set of channels for public venues, which have different ad breaks/content to residential subscriptions. (https://www.foxtelmedia.com.au/foxtel-media-network/fox-venu...)
I assume the pint glass pops up at intervals that the investigators would know and the general public would not, so you'd need some kind of central service with someone watching the commercial stream and showing/hiding the pint glass at the right intervals. In which case it would make more sense to operate a central service just pirating the commercial stream, which I'm sure does happen and does get shut down.
This would be the smart way to do it. But now think about how you'd do it the lazy way...