
Shazam-like technology used to identify bars illegally streaming soccer games - rexbee
https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/12/18662968/la-liga-app-illegal-soccer-streaming-fine
======
kelnos
This has the same solution as any other story around copyright infringement.

If you provide people with easy, convenient, legal methods to consume the
content in a way that works for them, for a price they find reasonable, then
they overwhelmingly won't resort to illegal means.

I'm not saying these bars are correct to resort to illegal streaming, but a
wise businessperson would see this as a signal that their product offering
doesn't actually match demand, and work to fill that demand. You're not going
to make 100% of people happy in 100% of cases, but you can get to a point
where the level of illegal streaming just isn't worth cracking down on.

It's such a sad waste that all this money has been spent to identify and track
down illegal activity when it could have been spent making the overall legal
experience good enough that most people wouldn't need to resort to illegality.
It adds insult to injury to note that companies like La Liga are already
making money hand-over-fist; it's not like they have some sort of crisis where
the lost revenue due to illegal streaming is posing an existential threat to
their business. Instead of cracking down and making enemies, they could
instead work to make the experience better and turn potential enemies into
satisfied customers.

~~~
stornetn
> a wise businessperson would see this as a signal that their product offering
> doesn't actually match demand, and work to fill that demand

This is not necessarily true. It depends entirely on the shape of demand. By
way of simplified example, imagine that there are two types of consumers
equally distributed: those willing to pay $1000 and those willing to pay $100.
Unless you can distinguish at time of payment between these users and charge
them different prices (without possibility of resale), you will always be
better off forgoing half of the market and charging only the higher price.

It's _possible_ that the business has estimated things incorrectly and is
acting suboptimally, but I think it's as least as likely that they are
maximizing profits the way we'd expect a rational business operator to do.

~~~
csa
> but I think it's as least as likely that they are maximizing profits the way
> we'd expect a rational business operator to do

I think you grossly overestimate the ability of most large businesses to
behave rationally form an organizational profit maximization perspective. It
would just as likely or even more likely be something like personal wealth
maximization by an employee or group of employees, personal relationship
improvement, ego gratification, maintaining/improving social standing, effort
minimization, etc.

This is even more so for a monopoly rights holder like La Liga.

~~~
dlkf
> It would just as likely or even more likely be something like personal
> wealth maximization by an employee or group of employees, personal
> relationship improvement, ego gratification, maintaining/improving social
> standing, effort minimization, etc.

Do you have any evidence for this?

> I think you grossly overestimate the ability of most large businesses to
> behave rationally form an organizational profit maximization perspective.

You're free to think this but it doesn't really square with common sense.
Profit maximization is a stated goal of large orgs, and by definition they're
doing ok at it.

In any case, your comment does nothing to diminish OP's point: that the shape
of the demand matters. What the shape of the demand is in this case is an
empirical question and you haven't provided any evidence.

~~~
lzol
People and businesses don't behave rationally. They behave with bounded
rationality [0]. That is, they make the most rational decisions with
information available to them. No one is working with perfect information.
This leaves plenty of room for them to leave money on the table.

With that said, I have no guarantee that these companies are leaving money on
the table. We also have no guarantee that they aren't. The best you are going
to be able to do is create a model. Models are not reality. Models use
assumptions. You're making two huge assumptions. One, that the models
assumptions are correct. Two, the people interpreting the model are doing it
correctly. Humans are imperfect, we make imperfect models, those models are
interpreted by other imperfect humans. Making concrete statements either way
is silly in my opinion.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality)

------
ankit219
One of those cases where both sides are in the mud. La Liga is struggling with
piracy of games for long. They have been trying to make money of their product
(football essentially features two of the greatest players to play the game in
last 10 years, only one now) but struggle due to their whacky ideas and no
care about fans. Sample this: The timings of games are as early as 12PM
(spanish siesta is at 4PM) and as late as 11 PM local time. They host 10
rounds every week, most in different slots to get more eyeballs. They have
acted in bad faith in a sense too. Spanish law requires one of those 10 games
to be free to air. They made sure that game is one held on Friday or Monday at
11 PM (teams' fans call it graveyard shift) and nothing on f2a tv on
weekend.The ones listed are the ideas which made through while others like
having one random game in US thankfully did not. Though, given their
ineptitude, its a sure wonder how they managed to execute this so well.

Bars should not be streaming the games illegally either. But since the cable
prices are too high, and nothing on free to air, they have to in order to
attract crowds. There is no official streaming service - albeit not bundled
with cable tv subscription - that people in these countries can make use of to
watch games.

The path forward maybe what Formula1 did by introducing a streaming service
which is not geo blocked. This way, I can watch a race at reasonable
subscription from anywhere in the world. They also allow me a racer only feed,
or the global feed, or a feed from a particular stand. I will definitely buy
it if any official football league offers that too.

~~~
airstrike
> But since the cable prices are too high, and nothing on free to air, they
> have to in order to attract crowds.

Somehow I find it hard to believe a business can't afford cable. Even if it
costs $200 / month, surely they ought to be able to cover that.

~~~
CtrlAltT5wpm
Take this with a grain or two of salt, as I don't recall the source, but it
seems plausible - I read somewhere that when it comes to businesses like bars,
at least in the US, there is a normal rate applied to the cable package, and
an additional rate applied 'per head' for the event in question. This may only
be for pay-per-view events where multiple people can congregate at a single
location which has paid the PPV fee, and not necessarily for widely broadcast
events; I've seen sports bars charge cover for highly anticipated MMA matches.

How those rules are enforced is beyond me. Tangentially related, some of the
legitimate, paid-for streams have been of pretty low quality, cutting out
frequently. Not sure if it's because of draconian DRM or just excessive
demand, but it would be interesting to find out.

~~~
kevinmchugh
For pay-per-view events there's usually a commercial PPV sales channel as
well. Joe Hand Promotions handled it for the UFC up until this year (now it's
all under ESPN+). JHP has some formula for determining cost, it's at least
partially determined by venue capacity, hence the use of a cover charge.

~~~
Fripplebubby
I believe UFC still sells with a commercial formula for bars, I don't know if
it's through JHP or not, but my understanding is that ESPN+ is for private
consumers only

~~~
kevinmchugh
oh, I thought ESPN+ also was doing the commercial licenses. They might handle
the delivery now, but yeah, it's Joe Hand still that does the negotiation.

------
josecastillo
This reminds me of a short story by Paul Ford from a few years back[1]:

 _We had gone to a baseball game at the beginning of the season. They had
played a song on the public address system, and she sang along without
permission. They used to factor that into ticket price—they still do if you
pay extra or have a season pass—but now other companies handled the followup.
And here was the video from that day, one of many tens of thousands
simultaneously recorded from gun scanners on the stadium roof. In the video my
daughter wore a cap and a blue T-shirt. I sat beside her, my arm over her
shoulder, grinning. Her voice was clear and high; the ambient roar of the
audience beyond us filtered down to static..._

 _I told my waiting daughter to go ahead and pay the few dollars, just part of
the latent cost of a ticket. She tapped and the tablet made its cash-register
sound, and the video was irrevocably destroyed so that it could never again be
shared._

[1] [https://www.ftrain.com/nanolaw](https://www.ftrain.com/nanolaw)

~~~
sneakernets
I had written (in college) a small story about an "RIAA Task Force"
collaborating with the FBI to raid small brick-and-mortar businesses with
occupants above some fabled "listener limit" that dared to have an FM Radio or
iPod connected to a boombox in the corner of the store somewhere. Everything
from Barbershops to Butchershops were raided, and the small infringing devices
confiscated.

Given that the RIAA tried to sue a grandmother once, This wasn't too far-
fetched.

~~~
ikeyany
Why is it illegal to amplify music in your store if you paid for the music?

~~~
bhelkey
Should it be legal to create a drive-in that plays movies off of Netflix?

~~~
Nextgrid
Unpopular opinion, but I would say yes.

It doesn’t cost Netflix any more money whether one person or 10 people are
watching a particular subscription.

I’d say the major appeal of the drive-in is the venue and all the accessories
(big screen, sound, etc) - otherwise you’d just pay for Netflix yourself and
watch it at home.

~~~
deelowe
Opportunity cost is real...

~~~
Nextgrid
I mean I understand both sides of the argument, but it seems like physical
goods manufacturers are doing fine without enforcing restrictions on how their
goods are used (I am free to buy an off-the-shelf power tool and then rent it
out without paying extra to the manufacturer), so why are we giving this
exception to content producers?

In my opinion the law should be changed that content you pay for can be used
as you wish _except copying_ (otherwise you'd just copy it and resell). It'll
drive up the prices of the "source" content, but the market will quickly fill
the gap by offering affordable access to broadcasted versions of such content.

------
jdietrich
Sky Sports use a far simpler solution that doesn't violate anyone's privacy.

The satellite feed that's licensed for public venues has a small beer glass
logo burned in to the image. The amount of beer in the glass changes every day
on a pseudorandom basis. An inspector can check whether a pub has the right
license simply by looking at the screen - if the glass is missing or contains
the wrong amount of beer, it's an unlicensed stream. It's plausibly hackable
by a sufficiently motivated person, but it's a remarkably simple and effective
deterrent.

[https://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2016/12/13/game-theory-
ap...](https://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2016/12/13/game-theory-applied-why-
is-there-a-pint-glass-in-the-corner-of-tvs-at-pubs/)

~~~
orf
But what if you are pirating a legal stream? Does the beer glass change per
subscriber? And then surely they would know by just asking “does this pub, at
this address, have a sky sports subscription?”

Seems simpler?

Also, side note, I’ve never seen the glass anything other than full.

~~~
jdietrich
_> But what if you are pirating a legal stream?_

The glass only appears on the (vastly more expensive) pub licensed feed, not
on the consumer feed. The higher cost and much smaller pool of licensed
customers reduces the likelihood of someone pirating the feed and vastly
simplifies the process of identifying the leak. A pirate could burn in the
right logo to a standard consumer feed, but they'd need daily information from
someone who can view the pub licensed feed.

Given the incredibly devious history of satellite anti-piracy technology, I
would fully expect Sky to have a bunch of other, subtler data hidden in the
feeds and codecs.

~~~
orf
That makes sense, thanks! But I can't help but ask again: why would a simple
lookup of address -> registration work here? Why would you need a vast array
of subtler, hidden data in the feeds?

If you're playing live sports in The Temeraire, and The Temeraire doesn't have
a license, then boom. You're knicked. Pubs are licensed and not readily
movable things owned by specific (and licensed) people. Walk in the door, if
they are playing sports and this pub is not registered then you know right
away. You'd in fact only target pubs that _dont_ have a license. No need for
any steganography.

Of course you might want it if someone is streaming this sports feed from a
pub licensed feed to the internet, but then why have the global changing beer
glass?

~~~
jdietrich
It's a surprisingly complex legal situation. It's very clear that using a
domestic Sky subscription in a pub is a breach of copyright, but it's less
clear if using a foreign satellite subscription is legal - recent court cases
have gone both ways and involve both British and EU law. The fact that a pub
is showing a football match without a suitable license from Sky isn't
necessarily evidence of wrongdoing.

The glass provides an instant clue for inspectors, but also the general
public. A busybody (or a rival publican) can instantly spot if a pub is using
a dodgy satellite feed.

There's also the underlying tension between Sky Television and the English
Premier League, who both have slightly different incentives around rights
enforcement. The pint glass allows Sky to easily audit pub landlords, but it
also allows the Premier League to audit Sky.

It's not a comprehensive anti-piracy system in itself, but it's a really
useful and really simple tool.

------
myself248
I've never been in a bar where the TVs had their audio on. The sports games
are on screens but muted, and some have closed-captioning turned on.

Wouldn't that defeat this?

Slightly off-topic but I feel like relating it:

When I was a kid, we'd watch baseball games on TV, but muted. Then we'd turn
on the radio and tune in whatever station was simulcasting the game. Because
the radio announcers assume you can't see the action, they narrate a lot more
of what's going on, so we could follow the gameplay without having to be glued
to the screen every instant.

We also didn't have air conditioning, so baseball season was windows-open
season, and more than once a pedestrian would pause to listen, sometimes
holler "HEY WHAT'S THE SCORE?" into the house, we'd holler back, they'd
continue down the sidewalk. _Everyone_ watched the Tigers in the 80s, and it
was said that when a game was on, you could walk clear from Trenton to Mt
Clemens and never be out of the sound of Ernie Harwell's voice.

~~~
schnevets
Sports in bars is a very different experience with sound on vs. off. Without
sound, it's a background distraction that a few folks may be interested in.
With sound on (even if the commentary is indecipherable), it's a collective
experience that holds everyone's attention. Usually the bar will mute or put
on music during commercial breaks.

I do wonder if alternative commentary would ever catch on. Imagine if instead
of talking heads you had a music track that would mimic the tension of the
game like a music score.

~~~
KingMachiavelli
Personally, I feel a slapstick comedy track would work best. /joke

What could work really well is some live radio, podcast, twitch of commentary
to supplement the detectable pirated audio. The biggest issue would be syncing
the video and audio.

~~~
myself248
So someone out there could make a killing by running their own stream that
acts as alternate audio for the matches. Couple of super-fans in a booth with
a video feed of the match, no audio passthrough, their own SFX person and
statistician feeding them talking-points...

Charge bars a few dollars for the feed, and watch 'em rake it in.

------
egd
Someone I met tried to figure out how to actually legally stream the NBA
playoffs recently - apparently there's basically no way to do so without an
existing cable subscription or without paying for the entire season. I'm
guessing the licensing structure around all of that would make the US tax code
look readable, but the result is that it's effectively impossible to decide
you want to watch a specific game on a computer and give someone money to do
so on a one-off basis.

~~~
xnyan
It’s so much easier to stream the NBA finals from a pirate site than it is to
pay - if there even is a way to pay. I’m looking at waiting 10 days for a
cable installer and at least 50 a month plus multiple calls to setup and then
cancel to watch the one event I want to watch via cable, or 2 clicks and an
ad-free 1080p 60 fps stream on my browser. I’m not saying piracy is legal or
moral, but the difference in cost benefit effort and value is so extreme I
don’t know how you can realistically expect someone who knows all the options
to chose cable.

~~~
fourmii
Really, how about just signing up to the NBA League Pass? Sure it's expensive,
but it doesn't need cable installation, just watch it from basically any
internet accessible device.

~~~
wjossey
League pass does not apply to nationally broadcast games or games in your
local market. I live in LA and root for the Celtics, and watch all the home
broadcasts with their arena feed. If I lived in Boston it’s not an option and
I have to have a cable subscription.

If the team is on a national broadcast, it is also blacked out.

That being said, I listen to the finals on the local radio broadcasts via the
NBA app because those are never blacked out.

~~~
notyourwork
MLB has same problem with blackouts. Irks me beyond belief.

------
hammock
Tangentially related: there is a cool app called Tunity that "shazams" a muted
TV, e.g. at a bar, finds the game and lets you play the audio from your phone
- syncing it perfectly to the video picture that you shazamed. So you can sit
at a bar or waiting room or somewhere with muted TVs, and listen to the audio
of the game.

~~~
borumpilot
...when the venue has a hearTV device installed and you are connected to their
network... But cool nevertheless.

~~~
hammock
I don't know what heartv is. I used it at a random bar and it just synced to
the audio fingerprint.

------
Scoundreller
This is an old story.

The update is the Spanish gov fining the league 1/240th of their top player’s
salary (250k/61m) for abusing 10m of their residents’ personal technology and
privacy.

Another way of putting it is 1/100th of the team salary for the lowest
spending team (250k/24m). Which, in-turn, spends 1/33rd as much as the top
spender.

~~~
mosselman
What are `(250k/61m)` and `(250k/24m)`? 250.000 euros per 61 months? How can
that be expressed in a fine? 250.000 * 61? I am confused, sorry.

~~~
ankit219
61M is the yearly salary of Lionel Messi. The top earner in Spanish League.

24M is the annual revenue of the smallest spending team in Spanish League.

~~~
Scoundreller
24m was the sum of the player salaries of the smallest spending team. If
they’re not losing money, their revenue is higher than that.

------
escapecharacter
I’m really into the dark future of DRM enforcement drones flying around cities
listening for illegal streaming.

~~~
slg
I am not sure how many people outside the UK are aware of this, but a similar
thing has existed there for nearly 70 years.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van)

~~~
dcminter
The vans exist. The implied technology within them not so much.

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/bbc-tv-
licence-v...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/bbc-tv-licence-vans-
wi-fi-snooping-analysis/)

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
The Wikipedia page states that they can monitor brightness changes through a
window and correlate that to a broadcast programme. How they deal with network
delays and time shifting is another matter.

~~~
thatoneuser
That sounds like something that works in theory but not at all in the real
world.

~~~
giobox
The full description sounds like a normal digital camera to be honest, almost
as if someone has gone to great verbal lengths to disguise the fact it is
simply a camera:

"The optical detector in the detector van uses a large lens to collect that
light and focus it on to an especially sensitive device, which converts
fluctuating light signals into electrical signals, which can be electronically
analysed."

For many years I had heard that the real enforcement tool was the fact that
anyone selling a TV in the UK, like an electrical retailer such as Comet or
Currys, had to submit the name and address of the purchaser to the TV
Licensing authority. I just did a quick google, and it turns out this really
was the case for a really long time!

> [https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-
> one/business...](https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-
> one/business-and-organisations/tv-dealers-aud18)

~~~
thatoneuser
TV licensing authority? That sounds unnecessarily dystopian.

~~~
giobox
Really? bizzare. Even the UK TV Licensing authority in the UK calls itself the
the "Licensing authority"! Given it has legal enforcement powers and a team to
enforce them the term "Authority" is absolutely appropriate.

"Since 1991, the BBC, in its role as the relevant licensing authority, has
been responsible for collecting and enforcing the TV Licence fee."

> [https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-legal-framework-
> AB16](https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-legal-framework-AB16)

------
Lowkeyloki
This really doesn't sit well with me. Yes, the bars in question were breaking
the law. However, keep in mind that one business was using private citizens to
essentially spy on other businesses without the citizens' knowledge or
consent.

I'm sure the users of the app technically gave legal consent via the app's
terms of service. But I doubt even 1% of the app's users were actually aware
of this aspect of the app.

Also, this is why the permissions an app requires to operate matter. I roll my
eyes just as hard as the next person when I see comments in the Google's Play
store about the absurd level of permissions required by some apps. But I also
think twice when I install apps requiring ridiculous permissions compared with
what they're supposed to do.

------
duxup
I'd like to see physical switches on all electronics that CUT POWER to cameras
and mics and have a clear indicator when they are active or not.

I don't know that people would use them, but I'd like to have the option.

~~~
Scoundreller
Easier said than done. On circuits that use small enough amounts of power,
they can run parasitically from the power through pullup resistors on I/O
lines. I've seen microcontrollers continue to work fine after lifting their
power pin.

~~~
duxup
It would take a deliberate design effort for sure.

~~~
benatkin
It would also be a bad design. Reminds me of the Spaceballs quote, "Evil will
always triumph, because good is dumb."

------
rolltiide
> Spanish data protection agency claims that the app didn’t make [the use of
> the microphone permission] clear, and has ordered LaLiga to take down the
> app by June 30th

So all they have to do is describe what it does and hope users don't uninstall
it? seems lesser than getting removed from the app stores

~~~
xythian
I'm waiting for a company to start paying $X to the first Y people that
passively find illegal streaming. Turn people into fully aware copyright cops
on your behalf. You leave an app running in the background and it listens 24x7
for unauthorized sports broadcasts.

~~~
hedvig
Ironic no? This was one of the major criticism of communism in practice.
Except now your neighbor snoops on you for a small profit in protecting the
outsized profits of capital.

~~~
Gibbon1
The funny thing of course is under communism copyright and patents don't
exist. On the other hand under Stalinism and Maoism owning a printing press
was illegal.

------
PhasmaFelis
Semi-related, the technology used in Shazam and other music ID services grew
from companies that monitored radio stations to make sure they were playing
all the ads they'd been paid for.

In the mid-2000s, I worked on a Shazam-like text message service that would ID
songs on the radio for you, and send you an iTunes purchase link. You texted
us the radio station you were listening to, and we sent that and the timestamp
to a server run by a company with listening stations all over the US, and it
told us what song it was hearing at that time. The company's main clients were
advertisers checking up on radio stations, but the technology worked just as
well for music.

It was a pretty sweet little service for the time, but sadly we never
launched. I was amused when I saw far more polished apps like Shazam doing
essentially the same thing, years later.

------
thisisitnownow
It's insane that they can get away with this with so little consequence.

~~~
jMyles
edit: I misunderstood OP's comment; makes much more sense when I read it in
the light suggested by anchpop below.

...that they can get away with copying a bytestream and decoding the result
onto a screen? Which harms nobody?

The insane part is that people, even on HN, have become convinced that someone
can own knowledge to such exclusivity that copying bytes can be a crime.

~~~
oh_sigh
So you wouldn't mind if I copied bytes of yours, such as private pictures,
private documents, etc?

~~~
jMyles
Obviously it is my responsibility to keep those bytes away from you.

If you come into possession of them in the absence of some kind of contractual
obligation regarding how you'll handle them (ie a privacy policy to which you
and I have jointly agreed), then yes of course you can do what you wish with
them.

Isn't this the same argument currently making its way through the public
mindshare regarding WikiLeaks? _Of course_ they had a right to distribute and
comment on the contents of the State Dept. cables. The fact that the
government claimed they were private (classified) can not overcome the basic
thrust of freedoms of the press and speech.

~~~
oh_sigh
Ok, so you're walking down the street with a locked phone in your pocket. I
send an Android Bluetooth 0-day payload to your phone. Nothing wrong with
that, after all I'm just asking your phone if it wants to copy some bytes, and
it says 'sure!'. Not my problem if your phone does something funky with those
bytes.

Now I have root, and copy off all of your pictures and private data onto my
device. Nothing wrong with that, just copying some bytes, right?

Finally, I have all of your data, no contractual obligations to you on how I
use it. So I'll just copy some bytes over to Twitter or Instagram and publish
your private photos to the world. That's all ok in your book, because all the
time I'm just copying bytes?

Your point is so reductivist that it is absurd. It's like declaring that any
human action is just wiggling of fingers or flapping of vocal chords, and what
can be so bad with wiggling fingers or flapping vocal cords?

~~~
jMyles
You've glossed over the important part.

Yes, in a free society, it's my responsibility to be a ward against 0-days.
This is the problem with unduly complex and / or closed source software and
closed, proprietary hardware being in our pockets in the first place.

To paint over these problems by restraining basic, fundamental speech (ie, you
can repeat anything you know to anyone, specific contracts notwithstanding) is
throwing away the baby instead of the bathwater.

------
ashtonian
IP law in this country need to go away. It doesn't help the market as a whole,
it doesn't encourage content creation it encourages legal spending and
manipulation.

You shouldn't get paid for having and idea you should get paid and be excited
to create content to be first to market and have an consumer base. If somebody
can come along and do it better there should be no legal barriers. The result
is a highly competitive iterative market that grows exponentially and benefits
the consumer. The only protections should be around branding ie you say you
are who you are. Everything else can be accomplished with trade secrets. This
is especially true when you consider the world is shrinking and the lvels of
control are local only. So all of your competitors abroad are benefiting from
it while locally we waste millions arguing in court over who is allowed to
bring product to market. It creates things like the epi pen markup. There was
an alternative, cheaper within a few days but they were blocked from marketing
and change the applicator to avoid a broad patent on it.

Also would like to point out that there is a reason why patents and io don't
exist in some of the oldest markets (food/clothing). Because otherwise there
would be no industry or growth. They live on brand protection and secrets..

~~~
dymk
One of the strongest tools you have as an individual or small business is IP
law. It means that the big incumbent that you're trying to take on can't just
swoop in and copy what differentiates you from them, and eat you alive.

------
slang800
Here's the original article, which goes into much greater detail than the
summary on the Verge: [https://www.eldiario.es/tecnologia/Liga-Futbol-
microfono-tel...](https://www.eldiario.es/tecnologia/Liga-Futbol-microfono-
telefono-aficionados_0_780772124.html)

Sadly neither article investigates how effective this technology was, or how
many bars actually got caught as a result of the malware in this app.

------
theoh
There was a proposed system back in the 90s which involved multiple decryption
keys. [https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~mernst/pubs/heraclitean-
tr9...](https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~mernst/pubs/heraclitean-
tr9413-abstract.html)

------
steveharman
I thought a better deal for customers might happen in the UK when BT competed
against Sky for Premier League football rights.

What actually happened was a bidding war that drove up the cost of the rights
which was then passed down to legitimate subscribers.

Or forced them into less legitimate ways of viewing the content

------
m0llusk
Making copies and sharing used to be hard so it made sense to charge money for
copies and build business models around that. Now both discovery and copies
are nearly free so business models must change. With pay to release payment is
collected from patrons and the results can be shared. Modern makers,
producers, and business people need to accept modern reality instead of
blockading about sharing being theft when it clearly is not.

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crummy
I'd like to know how someone found out it was recording. Wireshark after
noticing unusual bandwidth usage? Decompiling an APK?

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jimbob45
It doesn't feel like sports leagues want me to be a fan anymore. Take the NBA
for example. I can't attend games because they're outside of my price range. I
can't buy merchandise because a simple jersey costs north of $50. I can't
watch the games because the subscription per month costs too much and bars are
starting to get priced out of the range too. Encouraging my kid to play in
high school to go pro is a joke since there are no minor leagues that he could
fall into since he's not a genetic freak.

I want to be a fan but it feels like the sports leagues don't really value
fans anymore. Instead, they want to safeguard their product so that only the
rich can enjoy it.

~~~
SmellyGeekBoy
So don't be a fan anymore? I can't afford to own a Ferrari... so I don't.

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Schiphol
That's a weird angle. This story is not at all about "piracy", but about an
app using the microphone in a clearly illegitimate, and probably illegal, way.

~~~
kuu
Yep, it's illegal, they've been fined (by a ridiculous amount by the way)

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JMTQp8lwXL
It's possible for bars to mute audio and turn on subtitles.

~~~
kristofferR
It is also possible for bars to not serve alcohol. What's your point?

~~~
JMTQp8lwXL
The point being, a "Shazam-like" detection strategy would not work in that
setting.

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ourcat
Q: If, as a developer, you were asked to implement something like this, would
you?

Piracy issues aside, this would be a no-no for me on moral grounds.

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narnianal
What about it is Shazam-like? Are they a super hero? Are they funny? I don't
get it.

~~~
jefftk
They're referring to
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shazam_(application)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shazam_\(application\))

~~~
narnianal
Ah because it identifies audio input. I see. Quite disappointing, tbh. I
thought they refer to the movie.

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andrewstuart
Could be a good business opportunity.

Make a "compliance device" for shops/hotels/supermarkets that _want_ to comply
with their licensing obligations.

All the store owner does is place a listening device in their shop and it
listens to what licensed content is used and automatically invoices and
ensures compliance.

~~~
Lowkeyloki
/s? Please?

~~~
Uberphallus
Coming up for YC 3Q 2019

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rconti
Clever. Illegal, but clever.

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acd
In certain EU countries that could be A) Illegal wiretapping B) GDPR violation

If they happen to record other private information such as what political
party one likes, or religion one likes they would be even more in legal
trouble. And also recording anything about sexual life which could happen in a
bar conversation say between friends.

~~~
zwaps
It is a violation, for both a) and b).

They got into trouble.

They didn't pay a lot of money for that, though.

~~~
Scoundreller
They might have lost a lot of legal cases if their basis was illegally gained
evidence.

But I have no idea how Spanish civil law works.

------
floatingatoll
US folks - What law or court has proven that Shazam is fair use? The sports
broadcasters sue five second clips off the air, yet Shazam is allowed to
transform clips of games for this purpose?

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coldfinger
Does this spy act occur on iphone?

~~~
gruez
Possibly, although they’d only be able to do it inconspicuously if the apps in
the foreground (otherwise there’s a red bar at the top)

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xenospn
Just give everyone headphones.

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coldfinger
does this spy act occur on ios?

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unixhero
Sigh

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shusson
> The app does explain in the terms of service that by giving the app
> permission, users are consenting to LaLiga using their phones to detect
> fraudulent behavior, like pirated soccer games.

Completely missed this on my first pass. Makes the story a bit less dramatic,
still a serious privacy breach, but not so nefarious.

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throwaway2048
This will lead to an arms race with deploying cellular, GPS and wifi jammers.
You can order them online right now for low prices, at low power they are very
unlikely to ever be investigated.

[https://www.jammer-store.com/gps-blockers-jammers/](https://www.jammer-
store.com/gps-blockers-jammers/)

Do note things like this are HIGHLY illegal, and carry pretty insane fines if
you are caught.

~~~
flyGuyOnTheSly
No bar is going to install a cell, gps or wifi jammer to avoid a small fine...
as doing so would put them out of business.

No customer is going to hang out in a bar where their cell phone doesn't work.

~~~
bluedino
What bar is going to be quiet enough for sound fingerprinting to work?

~~~
golem14
If you have enough time for recording, I guess it doesn't matter. Also I
suppose noise in bars is in a rather narrow band compared to the sound from
the TVs. Haven't tried though, just my guess.

Of course bars could just stream without noise and just use closed caption ...

Interesting what would happen if patron a brings their phone and watches a
match, and patron B next to her is picking up the noise and reporting the bar
:)

