"Online Piracy Menaces Pro Sports"
NY Times: Online Piracy Menaces Pro Sports:
In combating piracy, one method of enforcement is off limits, executives say. They will not, like the music industry did, sue individual fans who are uploading games to peer-to-peer platforms.“I’d like to think we’ve learned some cautionary lessons from the music industry,” said Mr. Mellis of M.L.B. “What is the utility in suing individuals who are part of a larger chain of events?”
So a steady flow of cease-and-desist letters flow out of the offices of each league’s law firms. Moral suasion is used on foreign governments — M.L.B., for example, has been in discussions with the Chinese government about shutting sites there. Sometimes it works: Sopcast, a service that was begun as a project at Fudan University in Shanghai, now blocks M.L.B. games. (Virtually every other sport’s games can still be seen over the service).