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DAZN Partners with Videocites: Tackling the Surge in Illegal Sports Streaming

Live sports streaming is booming, but so is unauthorized broadcasting that steals revenues and audiences. To crack down, popular platform DAZN has enlisted Videocites and its powerful anti-piracy technology. This collaboration aims to rapidly detect and remove illegal streams, disrupting their accessibility to viewers.

If effective, it could reshape the sports streaming landscape by curbing rampant piracy. Let‘s dive into this deal and the innovative tech that could significantly reduce unauthorized broadcasts plaguing the industry.

The Scale of Sports Piracy: A Multi-Billion Dollar Problem

Before analyzing this new initiative, it‘s important to understand the sheer size of illegal streaming in sports. Piracy has exploded alongside the growth in streaming technology and platforms.

Research firm MUSO estimates $28.3 billion was lost to sports piracy globally in 2021 alone. Football and MMA see the highest rates of illegal streaming, with marquee events attracting millions of unauthorized viewers.

In Europe, over 300 million people accessed pirated sports content in 2021. 35% of online adults use illegal streaming services to watch sports. As media firm Irdeto reported, nearly half of consumers would likely stop their subscriptions if free, pirated options disappeared.

This reveals an enormous market of sports fans accustomed to illegal streaming. And the scope is only growing. Irdeto measured a 48% increase in visits to sports piracy sites in 2021 compared to pre-pandemic levels. The opportunity to monetize these audiences through legitimate platforms is immense.

But capitalizing requires confronting the ecosystem of pirate services feeding this demand. Sports organizations are allocating big budgets to stream events, then seeing revenues syphoned by illegal distribution.

Slow manual takedowns cannot contend with the scope. AI-driven solutions like Videocites offer the scalability to address this vast piracy surge. Let‘s look at how the technology works to rapidly identify infringing content.

Videocites‘ AI and Algorithms: How It Detects Illegal Streams

At the core of Videocites‘ platform is deep learning artificial intelligence trained to pinpoint unauthorized streams. This enables tracking across a huge range of platforms and near-instant identification of illegal broadcasts.

Specifically, Videocites utilizes computer vision AI to visually match streams against reference content. Even if graphics or logos are edited, the underlying video can be fingerprinted.

Contextual AI analyzes factors like usernames, descriptions, and channel behavior patterns to detect likely infringing accounts. It understands cultural nuance and languages to assess the context indicating piracy.

Powerful proprietary algorithms efficiently match live video to reference content. Even fast-changing streams like sports can be aligned for rapid recognition.

By combining these techniques, Videocites achieves unmatched scale and speed. The system can handle 50,000 concurrent streams, processing over 3 million platforms and 12 billion URLs daily. Illegal uploads are identified in an average of 1.2 minutes.

This automation is revolutionary compared to slow and limited manual review. It allows near-total coverage of the platforms where pirated sports content emerges.

Rapid Takedowns: Disrupting Illegal Streaming‘s Appeal

Once illegal streams are identified, Videocites swiftly sends takedown requests to have them removed. This speed is critical – the goal is to purge streams before they gain traction.

Research shows over 80% of audiences access pirated sports content in the first 20 minutes of a live event. By disrupting streams in their critical early lifespan, visibility is drastically reduced.

Videocites also extracts fingerprints of illegal streams to block any re-uploads or mirrors. This makes it harder for removed content to remerge on other platforms.

Fans desire reliability when viewing events live. By quickly removing unauthorized streams, Videocites aims to erode pirate services‘ appeal. Disruption pushes viewers towards legit platforms for consistent access.

As DAZN CTO Sandeep Tiku explained, rapidly targeting infringing content "discourages the use of illegal links in favor of legitimate streaming services."

DAZN: A Key Partner to Showcase Anti-Piracy Potential

For Videocites, collaborating with a top-tier platform like DAZN powerfully highlights their capabilities. With rights to premium soccer leagues, boxing, and the NFL, DAZN has invested heavily in sports streaming.

But much of those rights payments are lost to unauthorized distribution. In 2021 alone, over $900 million was drained from DAZN‘s revenues by piracy, per digital platform analysis firm MUSO.

Pairing DAZN‘s brand power and content portfolio with Videocites‘ AI technology showcases piracy protection at scale. The partners claim deploying these tools could eliminate over 90% of DAZN‘s unauthorized streams.

DAZN can better maximize its sports investments when fans view through official channels instead of illegal outlets. In turn, Videocites cements its position as an anti-piracy leader if it delivers on these lofty goals.

Potential Impacts: Reshaping Sports Streaming?

If Videocites‘ takedowns work as advertised, this partnership could significantly reshape the sports streaming landscape. The viability of "over the top" (OTT) streaming is partially contingent on limiting revenue loss to pirates.

Videocites gives DAZN and sports leagues a mechanism to control unauthorized distribution. This could make large investments in rights more appealing. Wider adoption across top platforms would strike a major blow to the pirated sports content ecosystem.

But challenges remain. Streaming piracy is an ever-evolving arms race. pirates quickly adapt to work around new protections and detection tools. Maintaining effectiveness will require constant AI development to identify the latest piracy tactics.

Final Thoughts: A Promising Partnership in the Anti-Piracy Fight

The staggering growth of illegal sports streaming demands powerful technology and industry cooperation. This deal between DAZN and Videocites represents an important development.

Leveraging Videocites‘ AI takedowns could significantly reduce piracy rates if implemented comprehensively. This would in turn boost revenues for legitimate platforms and rights holders.

Of course, determined pirates will always find ways around new solutions. But better protecting major players like DAZN raises the bar and cost for unauthorized streaming.

If this collaboration succeeds, it could set a template for sports leagues and broadcasters globally. The potential to disrupt illegal streaming at scale is now visible. Expect more momentum in the sports industry‘s tech-driven anti-piracy efforts.

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