Nearly two weeks after officially purchasing the rights to broadcast the 2018 World Cup, VTV identified over 700 cases of copyright infringement, prompting FIFA to potentially stop broadcasting the next several matches.

VTV requested aid from MIC to protects its World Cup TV rights (Photo: vtv.vn)

Only three days since the opening of the 2018 World Cup, Vietnam Television (VTV) has found 700 counts of violations of its broadcasting rights, and 300 IP addresses have been blocked.

Accordingly, the most grieve violations include live streaming the football matches on Facebook and YouTube and sharing websites illegally broadcasting the matches. Over 200 people have reported finable infringements to VTV via its fanpage on Facebook.

The domestic television stated that the Facebook streams have been removed 2-3 minutes into illegally broadcasting the matches. However, VTV also has considerable trouble handling these cases as the sources constantly change their IP addresses.

VTV emphasised that the domestic audience will be disadvantaged due to the violations, and that there is a risk FIFA will halt broadcasting the next several matches in case Vietnam cannot curtail these violations.

“The violations are making it difficult for VTV to protect the broadcasting rights of the 2018 World Cup,” VTV stated on zing.vn.

VTV has sent documents to the Ministry of Information and Communications (MIC) asking for help to protect its rights. Currently, VTV and FIFA are cooperating to handle violations, but some cases need the attention of MIC.

In the afternoon of June 18, Minister of Information and Communications Truong Minh Tuan assigned the Bureau of Broadcasting and Electronic Information and the Authority of Information Security to handle cases of violations of the 2018 World Cup’s TV rights.

VIR