Watched a few UH games on channelsurfing.net. Was sad to see it go. http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2011/03/livestream_sports_arrest.php ​Federal agents today arrested Bryan McCarthy, 32, for running a website that illegally livestreamed NFL games, pay-per-view fights and other sporting events. The operator of channelsurfing.net was arrested at his Deer Park home without incident by officers of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The feds say he had made more than $90,000 in profits from ads sold on the sit since December 2005, and that the site had gotten 1.3 million hits since it was seized by the government on February 1.
I get that the PPV companies theoretically "lost" some money on their WWE and MMA crap and that the NFL has their own streaming services. But the games I watched were stuff that wasn't even televised! Channelsurfing used to carry feeds straight from the jumbotron at places like Tulane and UTEP. Hope somebody can pick up the slack on stuff like that.
man....up to five yrs in prison! ouch. It was an awesome site too . Other then the payperviews -- most of this stuff was available somewhere on 'free' tv. Or not at all. Ugh. Someone needs to find a way to secure world wide internet broadcast rights supported by advertising -- the TV model...). I wonder who the advertisers were? I used a .eu streaming site to watch hockey the other day, and there was advertising from bigname companies on the site. Technology......faster then an outdated business model.
how the hell does this fall under the jurisdiction of "Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)" Don't these groups have enough to do???
Probably some paper pusher using this case to justify keeping his job. Gotta avoid those budget cuts.
No kidding. Meanwhile a handful of Wall Street executives took so much money that they collapsed the entire economy of the United States - and they're still living in mansions and haven't spent a day in prison.
Let's see... dude was streaming to the entire free world stuff that didn't belong to him, from deer park. Some of it copyrighted or trademarked or whatever it is, some from PPV stuff and some NFL games... selling tens of thousands of dollars worth of adspace to offshore gambling/credit fraud advertisers... and everyone here is like "Man, that's not right" when he [inevitably] gets caught smh
meh, spacefolding logic. Sad that it's true, but the two are really not relative. We could get into "They were smarter about it" or "They make the rules, it's no wonder" all the way agreeing it was a travesty, but none of that makes this guy innocent. We can discuss ways in which crimes are punished disproportionately I guess... but come on. Dude was streaming NFL stuff from Deer Park and profiting off it... how was he NOT going to get caught?
Yes, some of us don't have access to cable or PPV.. The internet is allowing us to connect and share things we never had capable of doing before... Just think of it as going over your buddies house to watch the game but instead yah do it online...
