Qatar-based news channel Al Jazeera says its  investigative TV programme What Lies Beneath has revealed that TV piracy organisation beoutQ is operating from Saudi Arabia.

Al Jazeera claims that two Saudi-based organisations were the alleged source of the piracy operation. The two service providers alleged to be involved were Selevision and Shammas. Selevision is usually a perfectly legal TV streaming service for Saudi citizens. However, as far back as September last year, Selevision (which has offices and facilities in Dubai as well as Saudi Arabia) was alleged to have links with the beoutQ pirates.

Al Jazeera stated: “The investigation revealed that beoutQ is based out of the headquarters of a media company in the al-Qirawan district of the Saudi capital, Riyadh.”

The TV programme showed footage which included images of the main control room and servers that regulate and distribute beoutQ’s stolen content from the beIN Sports channel.

Saudi Arabia has claimed that the piracy is the work of ordinary hackers, and that the State itself has no involvement. The Al Jazeera programme alleged that the piracy was part of an integrated system with official Saudi involvement and financial support.

Al Jazeera said it had documents that showed financial links between the Saudi-based companies and Arabsat, which transmitted the pirated signals. The Arabsat signals were taken down last month.

Categories: Articles, Broadcast, Piracy