BCC and ITV have reached an extrajudicial settlement agreement with ‘UKTVEverywhere’ to shut down the pirate IPTV platform. The particular service was selling access to UK TV channels to users from around the world, like expats who have moved abroad, for example.
The platform offered high-quality broadcasts, which even caught celebrities’ attention - who admitted using it, maybe a bit naively or due to ignorance.
Catching up on Eastenders on http://t.co/rd74p6UO5c .The writers need to put Alfie and Kat back in the vic.The new cast are a total joke.
— Lord Sugar (@Lord_Sugar) January 2, 2014
About to watch #FootballFocus in NY using @Uktveverywhere - amazing device, highly recommend to all Brits living abroad.
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) March 9, 2013
BBC and ITV took notice of this popularity and the open way people promoted the pirate IPTV platform, and soon, they knocked at the operators’ door. After all, these two British channels were directly affected by ‘UKTVEverywhere’ operations, as they were included in the large list of accessible channels (BBC One, BBC Two, BBC iPlayer, ITV, and ITV Hub).
This is the message that the visitors of ‘uktveverywhere.com’ are going to see now if they try to access the platform. BBC and ITV warn them that the above channels aren’t lawfully available outside of the UK, and anything relating to this is considered copyright infringement. At the same time, they are urged to give BritBox a try, which is the streaming service that the two launched back in 2019.
This message also means that you have just lost your money if you had paid for a subscription to UKTVEverywhere. It has been used by UKTVEverywhere to pay the settlement - the amount of which hasn’t been disclosed, by the way.
The official statement from BBC on the domain seizure is the following:
There are still quite a lot of pirate IPTV services that offer BBC TV channels outside the UK, so this war isn’t over. However, the two British channels have prioritized UKTVEverywhere, as this was the biggest of its kind.
If you want to access content that’s not available overseas, like BritBox, for example, maybe you should try a VPN tool. Check out our list with the six best UK VPN services in 2020, and pick the one that works best for you.