{"id":637413,"date":"2026-04-01T10:01:39","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T08:01:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=637413"},"modified":"2026-04-01T10:02:50","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T08:02:50","slug":"new-weapon-against-dstv-piracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadband\/637413-new-weapon-against-dstv-piracy.html","title":{"rendered":"New weapon against DStv piracy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A new court ruling in France will allow Canal+, owner of MultiChoice, to strengthen its blocking of illegal pirate streams, cutting off a method used by major targets like WakaTV and resellers in South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company said it would be reinforcing anti-piracy capabilities across its markets, including bolstering MultiChoice’s ongoing efforts to stop pirates hijacking DStv content, especially live sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the latest in Canal+\u2019s efforts to fight streaming piracy, following a multi-year court battle with some of the world’s biggest tech companies to get them to block pirate content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Paris Court of Appeal ruled in favour of CANAL+ for the blocking of illegal streaming and IPTV services by alternative DNS providers Google, Cloudflare, and Cisco,\u201d Canal+ announced<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis first-of-its-kind decision in France marks a decisive turning point in the protection of the content of the global media and entertainment group.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pirates will change DNS providers to avoid ISP blocking, and it is often suggested by illegal providers like WakaTV and resellers to their customers. Users can make DNS changes on their smart TV devices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Per Canal+, the Court of Appeal validated the principle of blocking illegal streaming via alternative DNS providers, with the technique now said to be \u201ctechnically feasible and proportionate.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2024, the Court of Paris ordered Google, Cloudflare, and Cisco to block domain names and associated subdomains of any pirate streaming website identified by Canal+. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The companies then launched an appeal, claiming that the blocking measures requested by Canal+ would be \u201cineffective\u201d in stopping piracy of Canal+ content, according to Italian law firm Studio Previti<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canal+ argued that \u201cdespite the blocking measures already ordered by the French courts and implemented by several providers, the sites remain accessible through alternative DNS resolvers.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The companies claimed that blocking DNS servers for these websites would affect only a small portion of users in Europe. They were ordered to block pirate content by any means necessary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Canal+ wanted to block any measures that would allow pirates to obtain illegally broadcast sports matches, specifically for the French Rugby League, the Champions League, and the Premier League.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Appeals by the tech giants have been unsuccessful at every turn, and now Canal+ has said they must comply with court orders that will block a number of loopholes used by pirates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This includes alternative DNS providers, as well as companies that offer VPN, CDN, and proxy services that streaming pirates can use to avoid IP blocking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It said the new rulings were \u201cfully aligned with the Group\u2019s strategy of requiring technical intermediaries of all kinds to take responsibility in the fight against audiovisual piracy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over 800 pirate streaming accounts cut off in South Africa<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this month, MultiChoice confirmed<\/a> to MyBroadband that it had deactivated 819 pirate streaming accounts belonging to end-users during a raid in Cape Town. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the time, the South African entertainment giant said it had accessed the pirate streaming provider’s management panel through its cybersecurity arm, Irdeto, and found 819 accounts, of which 715 were active.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following the deactivation, all 715 users were now unable to access their pirate streams or other content they usually received from the platform. The main reseller of the streaming packages was also arrested. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTwo cellphones were seized and will undergo download and forensic examination as part of ongoing investigations,” the DStv owner added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Investigations are ongoing as authorities, together with MultiChoice and Irdeto\u2019s anti-piracy specialists, continue to analyse the seized devices and digital evidence.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Canal+ has yet to approach South African courts to seek a similar enforcement order against local DNS providers, this is the only foolproof method MultiChoice has to cut off end-users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have reached out to MultiChoice to ask whether it is aware of any plans to roll out DNS blocking to stop streaming pirates in South Africa, but we did not hear back before publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Canal+ has secured a court order to block a popular method that streaming pirates use across the world. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341213,"featured_media":637448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[21383,913,29694,27100,85,167,48496,104169,101860,104168],"class_list":["post-637413","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadband","tag-canal","tag-cisco","tag-cloudflare","tag-dns","tag-dstv","tag-google","tag-irdeto","tag-isp-blocking","tag-streaming-pirates","tag-wakatv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637413"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637413"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":637552,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637413\/revisions\/637552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}