display

Thousands of fans follow the Bundesliga, Champions League or Europa League every week via DAZN.

For some time now, the spectators have not only seen the players and the goals.

For each game, the streaming service also shows a combination of numbers and letters.

It is small, often only recognizable at second glance and soon disappears again.

What does this code mean?

What at first might look like a mistake is pure intent.

It is an authentication number with which the streaming service wants to take action against illegal distribution of its content.

"With the watermark we can identify and block users who try to distribute our streams illegally," says a DAZN spokesman on request.

So whoever illegally passes on the transmission can be traced and identified using the code.

display

The personalized, multi-digit combination of letters and numbers appears at irregular intervals during the games.

So that the user cannot foresee where the code is, it is always shown at different points in the picture.

Piracy is a big problem for providers, especially when it comes to sports broadcasts.

There are tons of illegal streams online that actually offer paid content for free.

The operators of these Internet pages earn money from advertising placed on their websites.

And not just with that.

"More than 50 ad trackers at the same time"

For the users of such streams, according to Christian Funk, they also harbor other risks.

“The greatest risk is threatened data security.

Illegal streams are monetized through advertising, but also through value trackers, which read cookies and browser histories and sell them to third parties, ”said the expert from the German cybersecurity company Kaspersky to the“ Techbook ”web portal:“ More than 50 ad trackers run simultaneously on many streaming portals . "

In addition, not only the provider, but also the consumer of an illegal stream is liable to prosecution.

The European Court of Justice came to this conclusion in a judgment in 2020. Anyone caught must expect warning fees of 150 euros, claims for damages between five and ten euros per stream and the assumption of legal fees for the other side.