The most popular smart IPTV application for watching live TV has been blocked by some internet providers.
IPTV smarters thousands Downloaded more than 500,000 times on Google Play blocked by Spanish ISPs because of non-compliance with copyright that’s what was reported last time by Spanish users when they found out the application had been blocked by the internet service.
but no one knows who is behind this blocking request.
In 2022, La Liga submitted to the European Commission a list of “pirate” IPTV applications deemed illegal, although the latter did not contain any copyrighted work. In this list of 85 applications, we found “Smart IPTV”.
As is often the case, all eyes are on the giants of the entertainment industry, and in particular the broadcasters of football championships, who are particularly active in the fight against the broadcast of content that violates copyright. In England, for example, we think of the Premier League, in Italy of Serie A, and in Spain… of La Liga. Indeed, the Spanish professional football league regularly obtains injunctions to block pirate IPTV services.
An empty shell
The incriminated application, like many others, allows you to play content that is referenced in playlists in .M3U format, which was not provided with the application. Other media players like VLC and Winamp also allow these lists to be played. Indeed, the .M3U format gained popularity in the 90s. As TorrentFreak reminds us, it takes the form of “a text file containing locations where information can be found, on a hard drive or a network, mainly using a domain or IP address. »
For its part, La Liga highlighted the illicit uses that can be made of it: “It is important to note that all these reading applications allow the consumption of an incalculable quantity of audiovisual content such as sports, films, television series, etc. In other words, this problem affects the entire audiovisual industry and entertainment in general.
Downloadable from Google Play, the App Store, but also smart televisions like those from LG and Samsung, “Smart IPTV” specifies that its application “does not contain any channels, you must add your own”. Blocked by certain Spanish ISPs since April 12, 2024, the application remains accessible via a VPN, even if the owners of the application recognize that it is “not a very good solution”.