Since the advent of the VCR and then YouTube, the media industry’s No. 1 enemy has been piracy. But while Hollywood and the TV networks have fought one technology after another, one type of entertainment has been safe from illegal broadcasts: live sports.
That’s because fans hated waiting for illicit recordings to be posted online. Sporting events offered the rare assurance that millions of viewers would still gather at a scheduled time in front of their televisions to watch games unfold live.
“This is a breaking-of-the-dam moment because everyone has massively powerful computers in their hands that can shoot HD-quality video and live stream it with a live streaming server to thousands of people simultaneously,” said Jesse Redniss, a co-founder of media consulting firm BraveVentures. “There are major rights implications, and Periscope is treading over very thin ice because they have the ability to police the streams.”
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