Kodi streams of Premier League matches to be blocked

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Kodi streams of Premier League matches to be blocked this season after High Court order ALEX EVANS Email Published: 15:52 Thursday 27 July 2017 0 HAVE YOUR SAY Football fans who illegally watch Premier League matches on Kodi boxes could have their internet cut off thanks to a new High Court blocking order. The High Court has issued an order which will allow the Premier League to cut off online streams for people watching matches illegally. The Premier League was awarded a High Court blocking order for the upcoming 2017-18 season. In what is being called 'the largest ever crackdown on illegal streams', the order will target users of 'Kodi boxes' and other software which searches for illicit or foreign streams. The order means internet service providers (ISPs), like BT, EE, Virgin, TalkTalk, Sky et al, will have to identify and cut off illegal streams by law. The same order was put in place for the last two months of the 2016-17 season, and 5,000 server IP addresses hosting illegal streams were cut off. Earlier this year, it was reported that the Digital Economy Act had become law. In the act, changes were made around piracy, meaning users now face up to a decade behind bars for illegally streaming copyrighted content.

Anyone caught streaming TV shows, films and sports events using torrents, websites and Kodi boxes could be jailed for ten years. It is thought that the new law, which also covers online pornography and broadband rollouts, will be used to mostly target sellers, but technically anyone streaming is now punishable by the law. Technically, the Kodi software is not illegal, but streaming any copyrighted content using one is illegal and carries a maximum 10-year jail sentence. But there is a lot you can do with Kodi that isn't illegal.