beoutQ

The Qatar-based beIN Sports is the dominant broadcaster of sports programming in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), It had held rights to prominent events such as the Olympic Games, the FIFA World Cup, UEFA Champions League, Asian Football Confederation (including the AFC Asian Cup), La Liga, and Premier League in association football, Formula One racing, international tennis events, and other events.[1][2]

In June 2017, as part of a diplomatic crisis over alleged funding of extremist groups by the government of Qatar, beIN was banned from selling its subscriptions in Saudi Arabia, and the beIN Sports channels were briefly banned in the United Arab Emirates (the ban was reversed the following month).[3][4][5] It was reported that Saudi Arabia planned to fund a new competitor known as PBS Sport, operating out of Cairo, Egypt.[6] The proposed service never launched.[7]

A few months later, a new subscription service known as beoutQ emerged, which repackaged the beIN Sports channels as their own by overlaying its own digital on-screen graphics (DOG) on the feed. Initially, the service was distributed online, but later began to be distributed via 10 satellite channels.[8] The service's launch was backed by a social media campaign on Twitter; Saud al-Qahtani, former adviser to King Abdullah, participated in the campaign.[8] It was reported that the service's associated decoder boxes and subscriptions had become widely available across the country,[9][10][11][12] bundled with a free one-year subscription.[8]

In parallel with the diplomatic disputes and beoutQ, Saudi Arabian authorities have increasingly targeted beIN Sports, accusing it of holding a near-monopoly position over the market,[13][14] and engaging in forced bundling of its services with other unrelated channels.[15]

In April 2019, the United States Trade Representative (USTR) published its annual Special 301 Report on U.S. trade barriers created by insufficient protection of intellectual property rights. The report designated beoutQ as a "notorious market", stating that despite claimed efforts by local officials to seize the beoutQ boxes, "such devices nevertheless continue to be widely available and are generally unregulated in Saudi Arabia", and that the country "has not taken sufficient steps to address the purported role of Arabsat in facilitating beoutQ's piracy activities." Saudi Arabia was also added to the report's "Priority Watch List", for its "failure to address longstanding IP concerns and the further deterioration of IP protection and enforcement within its borders."[16] In January 2020, the European Commission similarly placed Saudi Arabia on its priority watch list for violations of European intellectual property rights, citing the country's inaction against the service.[17]

Initially, most of its telecasts came verbatim from beIN, but beoutQ later began to obtain content from other sources, such as Eleven Sports and Telemundo (the U.S. Spanish-language rightsholder of FIFA tournaments).[18] The beoutQ set-top boxes include IPTV apps (including one described as being the "Netflix of piracy"), with access to other pirated films, television programmes, and live television channels.[8]

The channels have broadcast propaganda attacking Qatar and beIN; one such example included a cartoon short where a beIN Sports executive (depicted as a cigar-smoking businessman surrounded by piles of money) realises that beoutQ was stealing away his customers. He attempts to meet representatives of FIFA (including a cartoon portrayal of its president Gianni Infantino), UEFA, and the Premier League, but they all ignore him. When he gets home, he discovers that his children were also watching beoutQ. The short ended with the caption "No to monopoly, no to politicising sport."[19][12]

In what Keaveny described as being "cat and mouse" tactics, the beIN Sports channels implemented on-air measures intended to frustrate beoutQ—including having occasionally changed the position of its DOG so that beoutQ would have to reposition its own to cover the beIN DOG again, and intermittent watermarks within the feed that are harder to obscure.[8] Likewise, due to increased on-air discussion of the service by beIN, beoutQ began to increasingly employ its own commentators, who are overdubbed into the beIN Sports video.[8]

The origin of the beoutQ signals are unclear: the service initially claimed that it was backed by Colombian and Cuban investors. However, this claim was denied by local officials in the two countries.[20] In September 2018 during legal proceedings in the United States, beIN linked the beoutQ website to Saudi businessman Raed Khusheim, who is CEO of UAE-based television provider Selevision. Khusheim denied the claims, arguing that it was a "smear campaign" by beIN stemming from business disputes.[21]

Analysis by beIN traced beoutQ's feeds to the Arabsat satellites (whose frequencies were frequently promoted in beoutQ's advertising). Arabsat has consistently denied that it is involved in beoutQ.[10][9][12] An independent test commissioned by a French court and released in June 2019 had also traced the signals to Arabsat. It was observed during the test that beoutQ's satellite frequencies had changed frequently to evade detection.[20]

In mid-August 2019, it was reported that beoutQ had ceased transmission via satellite; the broadcaster's customer support channels on social media claimed that the service had been taken offline for upgrades.[22] On 21 September 2019, Al Jazeera program What Lies Beneath broadcast an investigative report alleging that beoutQ's operations were based in the Saudi capital of Riyadh and tied to Selevision and Shammas. It also claimed to have obtained evidence of financial transactions with Arabsat, plans to potentially move the transmission site to North Africa, and a leaked video showing the operation's headquarters and infrastructure.[23]

On 16 June 2020, the World Trade Organization published a 125-page report finding that there was evidence that beoutQ was operating out of Saudi Arabia, including that the service had "received assistance from a Saudi content distributor in delivering its pirated broadcasts to Saudi consumers", was being distributed using Arabsat, and was "promoted by prominent Saudi nationals".[24][25]

The owner of beIN Sports, beIN Media Group, has condemned the beoutQ service.[26][2] beIN Sports' managing director Tom Keaveny has described the operation as being "at an industrial level",[26][12] and accused the service of "normalising piracy" – especially with the redevelopment of the film industry after Saudi Arabia lifted its ban on cinemas in 2018 (a move that occurred in support of Saudi Vision 2030).[8]

On 2 October 2018, Qatar filed a case against Saudi Arabia with the World Trade Organization, citing violations of the TRIPS Agreement. The same day, beIN Media Group also initiated an investment arbitration lawsuit against Saudi Arabia seeking US$1 billion in damages, citing beoutQ and other measures decided to hinder its business in Saudi Arabia.[27][28] In November 2018, the BBC and Sky plc issued letters to European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström, urging that action be taken against beoutQ's operations.[29]

Keaveny stated in February 2019 that rightsholder stances on beoutQ's "industrial-scale theft" would now be a consideration in future rights deals, and that it would also pay less because these rights cannot be protected.[30] He went on to explain that "we have been warning of the very real commercial consequences of beoutQ's theft of world sport and entertainment for almost two years now – yet the piracy continues with impunity every day and represents an existential threat to the economic model of the sports and entertainment industry." beIN also stated that it declined to renew its Formula One rights due to these market conditions. The rights would be acquired by the free-to-air satellite channel MBC Action; the channel is owned by the Middle East Broadcasting Center, which is majority-owned by the Saudi government.[30][31]

In June 2019, beIN laid off 300 employees, citing the piracy issues as a factor.[32] At an October 2019 conference in London, beIN Media Group CEO Yousef Al-Obaidly accused sports rightsholders of not taking enough steps to stifle the unauthorized redistribution of their content through platforms such as beoutQ and others. He predicted that the sports media rights market could crash, since "we now live in a world where exclusive broadcast rights are, effectively, wholly non-exclusive". He also criticized the Lega Serie A for agreeing to host three Supercoppa Italiana competitions in Saudi Arabia over the next five years,[33] for the country had been "stealing the commercial rights of all their broadcast partners for over two years."[34]

A bid led by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund to acquire Premier League club Newcastle United has faced scrutiny due to beoutQ, among other factors. In May 2020, Conservative Party member of parliament Giles Watling proposed that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport hold an evidence session regarding sports piracy in Saudi Arabia, and requested that the Premier League testify.[35][7][36]

In June 2020, UEFA welcomed World Trade Organization's report on Saudi piracy, which named beoutQ as the main offender in illegally regulating copyright protected content using Arabsat.[37]

• Qatar–Saudi Arabia relations

• beoutq.tv, a website published by beIN Media Group that discusses its allegations and findings surrounding beoutQ.