Massive confusion over beoutQ pirates
June 17, 2019
By Chris Forrester
Last week, a French Tribunal found – apparently decisively – that Saudi Arabia-based Arabsat is distributing pirated signals from beoutQ. The legal action had been brought by Qatar’s BeIN Media Group which has suffered badly at the hands of the pirates.
beIN’s case was brought before the President of the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris in because beIN has been unlawfully denied any legal recourse in Saudi Arabia where the pirate operation is based.
As BeIN states: “The purpose of beIN’s case was to establish in a court of law that, despite its denials, Arabsat has been carrying beoutQ’s pirate broadcasts. This was definitively established 12 months ago by three of the world’s leading digital security and technology companies, Cisco Systems, NAGRA and Overon, and now it has been confirmed by a European court of law. Since beoutQ’s piracy began in 2017, Arabsat has, quite remarkably, denied any connection with the pirate broadcasting operation – despite beoutQ openly advertising on its Facebook and social media channels the relevant Arabsat frequencies. Arabsat has ignored literally hundreds of legal take-down notices from international broadcasters and rights-holders.”
The statement from the Court endorsed BeIN’s allegations that the beoutQ channels were available on June 18th and 24th, 2018 on frequency 11919 MHz H and frequency 12207 MHz V via the Badr-4 satellite, operated by Arabsat.
But Arabsat has a different – and somewhat bizarre interpretation – of the court’s decisions and describes the allegations as “false”, adding: “The judiciary’s ruling rejected all allegations made by beIN against Arabsat, confirming Arabsat’s valid position regarding all the accusations and defamation attempts led by Qatar’s media group, which sought to link our organization to the dubious beoutQ piracy. The French judiciary’s ruling, rejecting beIN’s lawsuit and allegations against Arabsat, has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt our organization’s valid position from day one, despite beIN SPORTS’ attempts to cast doubt on that position; its media smear campaign; and its relentless attempts to push bogus and misleading claims.”
FIFA came out strongly against Arabsat and beoutQ on June 16th, saying, in a statement: “FIFA is aware that unauthorised transmissions of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019 are being made available across the MENA region, primarily Saudi Arabia, via the pirate broadcaster known as beoutQ.
beoutQ’s unauthorised transmissions of the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2019 are made available by way of Arabsat satellite frequencies. FIFA is therefore seeking the cooperation of Arabsat in addressing the misuse of FIFA’s intellectual property.
In addition, FIFA continues to explore each of its legal options as a means to address beoutQ’s unauthorised broadcasts. In this regard, FIFA is working with a number of other rights holders whose rights have also been infringed by beoutQ.”