As European football's top leagues begin another season, the world's "biggest pirate television network is back on the airwaves too," according to Tariq Panja of the N.Y. TIMES. All 10 games played on the opening weekend of the Premier League last weekend were broadcast on beoutQ, a "sophisticated Arab-language channel whose brazen theft of sports broadcasts has emerged as a high-profile battleground in the bitter and protracted dispute between Qatar and a group of its neighbors led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates." The rights to show EPL games -- as well as those in the Champions League and Ligue 1, among others -- in the Middle East are owned by the Qatar-based beIN Media Group. Saudi Arabia and Arabsat have "denied any involvement with beoutQ." There is, however, "mounting evidence to suggest it is a Saudi-based operation:" its website is geolocked, or restricted, to Saudi Arabia; the set-top boxes embossed with the channel's logo can be purchased in Saudi cities and "online payments are accepted only in Saudi riyals." BeIN Media Group's legal counsel, Sophie Jordan, said, "The evidence is irrefutable. On a daily basis it is carrying out -- in broad daylight -- a mass-scale theft of highly valuable intellectual property rights." BeIN officials said that tests on beoutQ’s signal were conducted "over a number of months" by three technology firms: U.S.-based Cisco, Swiss company Nagra and Overon, a company located in Spain. BeIN is touting the findings a month after Arabsat released a statement claiming seven experts, whom it did not identity publicly, concluded that its frequencies "were not being used by beoutQ." Cameron Andrews, the exec responsible for coordinating beIN's antipiracy operation, said, "The reports speak for themselves. There's no possible way these internationally well-known firms would compromise their reputations." Saudi Arabia has also been lobbying int'l sports organizations to end their agreements with beIN Sports, "frustrating those unwilling to be drawn into what they consider a political, rather than a sporting, dispute" (N.Y. TIMES, 8/16).
