I think the underpinning of this story reflects the nature of rip-off Britain at the moment. "Dozens of similar sites have sprung up to take advantage of the rise of broadband and <b>the expense of satellite TV subscriptions in the UK</b>". Rather than chasing around attacking people who are trying to give other people better value for money for the same broadcast just shown in a different country, international companies should look at levelling their costs to provide a fairer market around different countries. Particuarly the cost difference between the US and the UK where corporations seem to keep almost the same figure and just change the $ for a £!

Of course, if the Premier League were to actually take note that these sites are in demand and people are willing to pay, rather than just stamping them out and forgetting about them, then we might finally get a pay-per-view football service that is independent of the broadcaster - ie. Sky - and finally brings true choice and value to the country's fans.

I know Sky have probably got some lock-in terms to the contract, but hey, I can dream...

You're having a laugh!

There are loads of free streams out there. Hundereds infact. I love it! I can watch Euro 2008 in my front room, but if I go upstairs to my room, I can stream the game! Yes!

Another instance of greedy bastards charging a ridiculous amount of money for something and then being surprised by the demand from their ex-customers for a cheaper, if illegal service!

Do any of these money grabbing tossers recall prohibition and how well that worked? Have they not learnt from the RIAA / MPAA / (continue list of racketeering and organised crime) and their destruction of their own markets? They have already bleated and now charge pubs through the nose for live sports because pay per view is too expensive to bother watching at home.

Simple lesson; Provide what your customers want, in the form in which they want it for a price they are prepared to pay and your problems will go away.

Since when? It's a good article, don't spoil it with inaccurate, cheap shots

Paris, because she'd love an Isle of Man

How easy is it to set one of these things up?

*looks for servers & off-shore bank accounts*

...so what do they plan to do about all the FREE streams available?

Excuse me while this freetard sticks his fingers in his ears at the thought of paying to keep thick as mince no good for anything else footballers in bling, wags,jags ,hair dressers and mysterious white powders.

Penguin ?

I like anything that's free because I'm so fed up of being ripped off by cartels.

"I can watch Euro 2008 in my front room, but if I go upstairs to my room, I can stream the game! "

That would be those pesky BBC and ITV streams then. Get them stopped!

Mines the one with UEFA on the back and my initials on the front.

Do a little research. This site was showing games that weren't being shown live in this country, i.e. games that kicked off at 3pm on a Saturday.

However, as others have said, it's incredible that this site was getting away with charging £9.95 for something that other sites give you for nowt. As the saying goes "there's one born every minute".

No matter how much sky or any of the other providers charge for sports events, if someone was to offer it cheeper, there will be a market.

if sky were to reduce the cost of PPV matches to 50p per match, and some dodgy website was offering them for 10p, a significant amount of people would save the 40p.

Fucking hell. They'll be copyrighting things like "register" next.

Right, best be off then. Mine's the one with "one law for the rich and one for the poor" on it. Ta, muchly,

you'd be amazed what can [apparently] be copyrighted these days!

http://bilgebrain.net/2006/08/04/lets-paint-the-town-er

....now any free streaming sites for a proper sport, namely the Rugby.....

I'm not capitalism's biggest fan, but the current set-up is clearly anticompetitive.

OK, when our only source of telly was 4 channels it would have been madness to show the same thing on two channels.

However, streaming video blows those limits out of the water so there is little or no inefficiency in having multiple sources of streaming.

The free market solution is for the Premier League to set a standard per view fee and allow anyone to stream on license (with certain due diligence exemptions to protect all parties from fly-by-nights). Individual companies would then have to compete on technological (picture quality, connection reliability etc) and price grounds, giving a better deal to the customer.

While their is a natural monopoly on source, the monopoly on distribution is artificial and arguably, by standard practices, illegal.

Hum now, why can these sites do the streaming for free?

Because they are not paying big sums to the show the matches? They are not paying for broadcasting? They are not paying for anything, except the computor equipment?

Thats how they can afford to do these things for free when Sky can't. Don't want to pay? They you can't watch it. I dont have Sky because I think its a rip off. I don't go thinking it is some sort of moral crusade to have free Football.

I could get you a car stereo for cheap. Dosent make it legal.

You people are dum, or evil, or both.

Do you actually read the above posts?

We are not asking to see the games for free, we are complaining that sky charge an arm and a leg to show the games in the UK but sharge very little to show the games in other counties.

and allow people to hit the red button at 3pm on a Saturday and choose which match they'd like to watch. Problem solved.

I would happily pay a bit extra for that kind of service.

With ticket prices being the way they are most normal fans can't afford to go anyway so it's not like game attendence will be affected that much (which is the argument for not showing the Sat 3pm games for those who don't know)

I can choose where I buy most things and, price fixing allegations apart, this does at least give some sort of illusion of bringing down prices.

You electricity provider, for example, buys power at wholesale rates, they then sell to you at a retail rate. A similar situation could work with sporting (and other) events. The seller (the Premiership in this case) could set a wholesale price, your ISP, TV company, webcaster, whoever then pays the wholesale price - per minute, per game or per season and then charges you the rate they see fit. This would doubtless lead to a reduction in retail prices. The funny thing is that this model could well lead to a greater income for the premiership than the current system of auctioning "exclusive" rights.

premiershiplive ISN'T a trade mark so what a load of BOLLOX. As usual. YES it's an illegal activity but NO premiershiplive ISN'T! "Barclays" is a TM, "Barclays Premiership" may be a TM, but not "premiership" ffs.

What next? InternetTV.net .. you can't have that, Sky is a TV broadcaster so therefore automagically own TV TM ?. Am I the only one sick of this kind of bollox be it legit or not ?