The war on IPTV has been heating up in recent months now Disney, Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix, and more have successfully shut down one of the largest IPTV providers out there. Last month Soap2Day vanished without warning, and now we learn that it shut down one day after being served with legal action, according to a report from TorrentFreak.
Soap2Day had over 108 million visits per month, making it larger than HBOXMax.com at the time. Now the site is gone, and it is joining a growing list of IPTV services that have recently shut down.
So what are IPTV services? In short, an IPTV service is an illegal live TV streaming service promising to give you all the big networks like ESPN but for a fraction of the cost of legal services. Many of these services promise hundreds of channels for a fraction of the cost of a service like Fubo or YouTube TV, to name a few. Increasingly they have also included on-demand sites offering access to programming when you want them.
In the past those who used IPTV services and more importantly, sold them did so without any real fear of legal action. The few IPTV services that faced any trouble in the US mostly faced civil lawsuits. That all changed back in 2020 as the US passed a law to make running piracy services a criminal activity.
Increasingly what was once considered a civil case when IPTV services were shut down is now considered a criminal case. In the United States, laws were recently changed to make running an IPTV service a more serious crime. Over the last few years, multiple IPTV owners have faced jail time and fines after being prosecuted under the new laws.
The US is not the only place to make running an IPTV service a crime. Many countries have made IPTV services from a civil matter into a criminal one.
As cord cutting has put pressure on cable TV companies and content owners, they have invested heavily in efforts to stop even small piracy services. What was once a side project for many companies is now a major focus.
Look for 2023 to be a year full of crackdowns on all kinds of illegal streaming services, including IPTV services. This is likely just one more in a growing list of IPTV services that will face legal actions this year.