Uefa, football’s European governing body, has been granted an injunction by the UK’s High Court to force six internet service providers to clamp down on illegal streams of matches.
The ISPs named in the injunction are BT, EE, Plusnet, Sky, TalkTalk and Virgin Media.
Uefa’s claim for the injunction requires the companies “to take measures to block, or at least impede, access by their customers to streaming servers which deliver infringing live streams of Uefa competition matches to UK consumers”.
The order will come into force on February 13 and will run until May 26 – stretching from the start of the knockout stages of the Uefa Champions League through to the final of the competition.
The judge added: “Uefa’s evidence establishes that it owns the copyright in television broadcasts of all matches in the Uefa competitions, and in films (particularly replays), artistic works and musical works which are incorporated within those broadcasts. The rights are very valuable.”
The English Premier League has a similar High Court order in place for the duration of the 2017-18 season after an initial injunction covering the final two months of the 2016-17 campaign was deemed to be a success after more than 5,000 server IP addresses that had been streaming illegal content were blocked.