Spark profiting from global mode?
Legal rival gleefully points out that UK provider sells access to Spark's Lightbox Sports.
Could Spark be profiting from a global mode-style service?
It goes like this: A UK company is selling a global mode-style service that allows British punters to access PremierLeaguePass.com — a service owned by Spark-owned Lightbox Sport* that offers every UK Premier League game live and on-demand. That's broader coverage than UK fans get at home, given local rights are divided between Sky and British Telecom (which offers a Lightbox Sports-style service), who each screen a different set of games.
One of Spark's legal rivals gleefully pointed out the UK offer to NBR.
It involves a company called UK Proxy Server, which sells VPN (virtual private network) and proxy server services that can be used to mask your country of origin.
It seems UK Proxy Server is selling access to the Kiwi PremierLeaguePass.com, which it says offers more games live and on-demand than British rights-holders Sky and BT. A how-to includes payment instructions.
ABOVE: Screen grabs from UK Proxy Server, promoting its service that allows access to Spark's PremierLeaguePass.com in NZ.
If Spark was gaining new Lightbox Sports customers via a global mode-style service, that would be hypocritical, given its party to the anti-global mode action being brought against CallPlus, BNSL and others (the action was announced late Friday).
But the company flatly denies it is turning a blind eye and taking money from offshore subscribers (which would be a violation of PremierLeaguePass.com's NZ-specific contract with the Premier League**).
"This is not a service endorsed in any way by CSM [Coliseum Sports Media]," Lightbox CEO Kym Niblock said when NBR showed her a link to UK Proxy Server and its PremierLeaguePass.com offer.
"CSM regularly sweep their systems to identify and prevent illegitimate access to their services from outside of their geographic rights limits."
That's easier said than done, but clearly Lightbox has a zero-tolerance policy for people outside New Zealand accessing PremierLeaguePass.com*, and anyone who forks over money to UK Proxy Server risks losing it if they're discovered in a CSM sweep and kicked off service.
Still, it illustrates the increasingly fraught and complicated nature of trying to preserve territory rights in the age of a global internet.
There's also been internet chatter that Sky TV's move to put new season Game of Thrones episodes on Neon within hours of them airing in the US could make it the target of people overseas subscribed to global mode services. If so, Sky's contractual and — given the global mode case — moral and legal obligations means it will have to turn their money down.
- On Friday, Spark responded to a dig from MyRepublic that Spark customers use VPNs to access geo-blocked content overseas. Read MyRepublic rejects cease-and-desist letter, attacks Spark over net neutrality
* Lightbox Sports is a 50:50 joint venture that was formed by park-owned Lightbox and Coliseum Sports Media formed late last year. All of CSM's IP and rights have been subsumed into the new entity. CSM's PremierLeaguePass and golf and rugby services still run standalone, but long term they will be integrated into a single Lightbox platform. Similarly, all CSM staff are being moved into Spark's building.
** PremierLeaguePass.com recently expanded its Premier League contract to cover Taiwan and the Philippines as well
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Spark profiting from global mode?
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