Live sports has become the hot spot for streaming piracy amid a slight fall in infringements around other forms of content. This conclusion can be drawn for Europe at least from a compendium of recent studies coupled with analysis conducted by our research arm Rethink TV for the report Globalization lifts TV sports rights past $85 billion future Sports Rights Forecast to 2024. One common theme running through much of the research is that the impact of piracy can be reduced by making the associated content readily available affordably and conveniently at high quality, while catering for trends in viewing behavior. This is particularly relevant for “near-live” sports content which has witnessed a surge in piracy recently driven by rising…