Twitter’s Periscope Used In Piracy Of 2015’s Biggest Fight

Twitter-owned Periscope was used as a medium to promote pirated streams of the boxing match between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao on Saturday. People who paid to watch the fight employed mobile phones to record the event from their TVs, and posted it on the live-streaming app so others could watch the bout for free.

Twitter owned Periscope- the real winner

The event led Dick Costolo, CEO of the company, to declare Periscope as the winner of the night, according to Bloomberg. In addition to Costolo, Chris Sacca, a Twitter investor, also claimed Periscope won ‘by a knockout.’ A lot of other Twitter users confirmed watching the fight in their tweets.

This trend poses a major concern for TV Networks, who are trying their best to limit piracy. It seems clear that owners of live-streaming apps will have to find new ways to restrict live-piracy.

The live-streams posted on Periscope remain available for a day after their post, while the streams posted on Meerkat vanish after the recording has stopped.

A major concern for TV Networks

The fight that was pirated on Periscope was jointly produced by Time Warner’s HBO and CBS Corp’s Showtime. While the boxing match was still going on, executives from both companies requested live-streaming apps such as Periscope and Meerkat to remove the pirated streams. Prior to this, HBO also asked Periscope to take down the streams of the first season episode of its famous TV series Game of Thrones. According to the Hollywood Reporter, both HBO and CBS have already filed a lawsuit against the apps that were planning to stream the fight for free.

Although, the piracy of the fight does not seem to impact millions of dollars that both the companies made, it does portend a major issue that could arise due to more people using live-streaming apps to watch pay-TV. Moreover, it is going to be difficult to control this kind of live-piracy, according to Shelly Palmer, an adviser to media companies such as 21^st Century Fox, who also claimed to have watched the fight through various streams on Periscope.