According to a report from Torrent Freak, Sony Pictures is working on behalf of the management of the UEFA Euro Cup to prevent rampant piracy of the ongoing UEFA Euro Cup games happening in France right now. Sony has reportedly sent warnings to torrent giants such as Kickass Torrents (KAT) and the Pirate Bay.
It is stated that the games are available through legal means and they can be streamed through numerous licensed cable networks and online venues via paid subscription. However, it is stated that torrenting sites such as KAT tend to offer an HD copy of the games mere minutes after they have aired.
Despite the pre-piracy warnings from Sony, the report points out that torrent sites, particularly the Pirate Bay, are known for completely ignoring such letters. This does tend to draw legal attention which has caused the Pirate Bay to shut own momentarily from time to time. KAT has notably been able to avoid such drastic shut downs in the past.
"Any manner of communicating and/or making available for viewing the UEFA EURO CUP 2016 matches on any platform shall therefore amount to violation of our Client's exclusive rights in which our client has invested significant amount of money," reads a portion of the letter, a copy which was acquired by Torrent Freak.
The letter also states that Sony has sole distribution rights of any telecast of the games in India although the network will make it available through other outlets such as ESPN India and other online ventures. However, it is speculated that a large number of viewers will aim to get a free copy of the games via KAT or the Pirate Bay.
It was previously reported that torrent giants have been able to avoid such legal mandates such as this one by using multiple domains. KAT, most recently, has opened a new domain in the dark web, using a .onion domain for the first time.
