Mayweather-Pacquiao Fight Plagued by Piracy on Periscope, Meerkat

The broadcast of the highly anticipated boxing match between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao has been hit with piracy, despite television execs’ best efforts to prevent illegal viewing.

Users of live-streaming sites Periscope and Meerkat began shooting footage of the fight from their TVs and sharing it shortly after the starting bell on Saturday. Tweets of users’ experiences with the sites can be seen below.

Read more Big Price, Big Expectations for Mayweather-Pacquiao Pay TV

It’s likely that piracy was worsened due to many cable providers, including Time Warner and Charter, suffering service outages prior to the fight. The fight’s start was delayed as providers dealt with the issues.

The piracy follows Showtime and HBO jointly filing a copyright infringement lawsuit against several streaming sites on Tuesday. Periscope and Meerkat reps say that copyrighted footage will be removed from their sites. 

Read more Showtime, HBO Have Already Sued Over Streaming of Mayweather-Pacquiao Fight

Periscope and Meerkat allow users to shoot footage from their smartphones and tablets and share it on social media. Periscope’s streams stay visible for 24 hours, while Meerkat’s disappear when the recording ends.

Tweets follow about users streaming the fight.

Over 4,000 on this @periscopeco watching the fight. Brace yourselves, lawsuits are coming. pic.twitter.com/xTX7ZGygom

— Ben Schaechter (@Bensign) May 3, 2015

Boxing meet Periscope. Periscope meet boxing.

— Justin Wells (@justinwells2424) May 3, 2015

Well, this Periscope thing is pretty cool. Watching the fight on my phone via some schmo’s TV!

— Keith McShea (@KeithMcSheaBN) May 3, 2015

Download periscope. It’s all over there https://t.co/8Dz4UXSpcD

— Dave Birkett (@davebirkett) May 3, 2015

Amazing. My @AppMeerkat & @periscopeco streams are full of people live streaming #MayPac

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) May 3, 2015

Email: Ryan.Gajewski@THR.com
Twitter: @_RyanGajewski

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