Trade Groups: Meerkat and Periscope Are No Knockout Punch—Yet

Together, Meerkat and Periscope delivered a one-two punch—however small—to the extremely valuable pay-per-view system Saturday night.

And for associations focused on maintaining the value of an entertainment experience, that’s raising concerns, though those groups aren’t sounding the alarm just yet.

The two social-enabled apps, which allow for live-streaming of content, have become  popular in recent months, but a turning point may have come when Floyd Mayweather Jr. pounced on Manny Pacquiao: While the fight was selling for $89 or $99 on HBO and Showtime, free streams of the event were easy to find on Meerkat and Periscope.

That wasn’t entirely unexpected. Streams of the HBO hit Game of Thrones have become common  (opens in a new tab) on both Meerkat and Periscope, and Major League Baseball has already begun monitoring usage of the services  (opens in a new tab) to ensure that games aren’t being shared by fans at the ballpark.

While associations are concerned about the potential effects of piracy—it’s worth remembering that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the National Association of Theatre Owners took a hard line on Google Glass last year—for the most part their public statements on the technology have been muted. Both groups say the services are small potatoes compared to larger piracy threats like Popcorn Time and The Pirate Bay.

In responding to news about Game of Thrones piracy, Dennis Wharton of the National Association of Broadcasters told National Journal that the threat to its members’ interests was largely theoretical at the time.

“Obviously, we would be concerned about [Meerkat users streaming TV] if it involved delivery of broadcast programming,” Wharton said  (opens in a new tab). “However, we are not aware of any copyright abuses that have been alleged against Meerkat at this point. We’re hopeful that Meerkat users will respect the copyright implications of delivering broadcast programming to users without permission of the rights holder.”

And Variety reported  (opens in a new tab) that MPAA CEO Christopher Dodd, speaking at CinemaCon in March, said, “We don’t want the tech world to think we have zero tolerance for new innovations and new ideas that come along.”

But at the same event, NATO CEO John Fithian admitted that “Periscope is scary stuff.” (Still, he later told The Wrap  (opens in a new tab) that it “hasn’t been an issue for movie theaters yet.”)

The organization taking the toughest approach to the services might be HBO, which argues that they should be more proactive in preventing copyright-infringing streams in the first place.

“In general, we feel developers should have tools which proactively prevent mass copyright infringement from occurring on their apps and not be solely reliant upon notifications,” HBO said in a statement regarding the use of Periscope to share Game of Thrones episodes  (opens in a new tab).

Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao, Meerkat piracy victims? (handout photo)