Protecting livestreams isn’t just about shutting down thieves; it’s about preserving trust, loyalty, and the willingness to pay.

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Seventeen million people pirated the Super Bowl LVIII in 2024. That’s more than the population of the Netherlands (close to Brussels, where I grew up…) all watching the most expensive broadcast in history without paying a dime. If piracy can undercut the NFL, what chance does anyone else have?

And yet, innovation marches on. This year, Sky Sports rolled out its multiview feature that allows fans to stream multiple Premier League matches side by side. YouTube TV is playing with the same idea for live concerts and games. For fans, it feels like a leap forward:  immersive, customizable, next-gen.

For pirates? It’s a jackpot. Instead of one feed to hijack, there are now four. New features don’t just multiply experiences, they multiply leaks.

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When the solution causes harm

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So how do broadcasters respond? Too often, with a sledgehammer.

In the U.K., High Court orders led Cloudflare to start geo-blocking hundreds of piracy-linked domains in July 2025. Visitors in Britain—including those connected via UK-based VPN endpoints—hit “Error 451: Unavailable for Legal Reasons,” effectively walling off entire sites at the infrastructure layer.

That’s the paradox: Blunt-force enforcement looks decisive, but it risks alienating the customers you want to keep loyal. And in streaming, customer loyalty is fragile.

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A solution with surgical precision

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That’s where Redflag AI, a San Francisco startup, enters the picture. Their Cyclops system replaces knee-jerk reactions with surgical precision.

Here’s how it works:

• Every livestream gets an indestructible and unique signature applied to it. This is a novel approach to what has been traditionally known as watermarking.
• Pirates rebroadcast it.
• Automated bots spot it, trace it back to the source, and kill it—within minutes.
• Everyone else keeps watching, uninterrupted.

As Max Eisendrath, Redflag’s CEO, told me recently, “Blunt crackdowns may seem effective, but they risk punishing paying fans. Cyclops protects rights-holders without turning customers into collateral damage. With the advent of Redflag’s low level and machine learning-based solutions, content owners can achieve the protection they desire without relying on onerous hardware solutions or multi-year integrations.”

That distinction matters. Sports rights cost billions. Subscription fatigue is real. Sponsors expect exclusivity. A glitchy enforcement approach that angers fans isn’t just a PR problem—it’s a balance-sheet problem.

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The bigger lesson for business

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What’s interesting here isn’t just the tech. It’s the business philosophy.

Innovation on its own isn’t enough. In 2025, protected innovation is the differentiator. Fans, customers, and partners don’t care how dazzling your features are if they can’t rely on them being exclusive, seamless, and worth paying for.

Which makes Redflag’s approach less about piracy and more about business model resilience. Protecting streams isn’t just about shutting down thieves; it’s about preserving trust, loyalty, and the willingness to pay.

As we roll into a fall packed with football, concerts, and streaming premieres, one question lingers: Are companies investing as much in protecting their innovations as they are in building them?

Because the winners won’t be the loudest enforcers. They’ll be the ones whose defenses are invisible, so their innovations can shine without becoming someone else’s free-for-all.

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