beIN Media winning major US anti-piracy support
February 18, 2019
By Chris Forrester
Qatar-based beIN Media Group is gaining increasing support from major sport and entertainment broadcasters in the US for its anti-piracy drive against beoutQ. beoutQ fills 10 channels of mostly beIN Media pirated content.
beIN Media is also asking US authorities to place Saudi Arabia on its important ‘priority watch list’ because of the Kingdom’s alleged support of beoutQ.
beIN said on February 15th that it had delivered a 138-page dossier to the United States Trade Representative of evidence of Saudi Arabia’s alleged deliberate activity. beIN alleges that beoutQ “has since expanded to cover the most popular movies and television programming in the world, much of which is produced in the United States.”
Amongst the US broadcasters supporting – or making their own complaints against beoutQ – are the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (which includes Discovery and Fox), Sky, the BBC, Canal Plus and sports bodies such as FIFA, UEFA, Formula 1, NBA and NFL as well as the US Chamber of Commerce.