Conor McGregor vs Khabib: Video highlights of fight and brawl spread across Twitter and YouTube, despite piracy crackdown
Hundreds of illegal feeds of UFC 229 allowed fans to watch the fight online for free
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Your support makes all the difference.Videos showing the fight between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov continue to spread online, despite recent efforts to quash piracy on popular websites and apps like Twitter and YouTube.
Saturday's fight for the UFC lightweight title was broadcast on BT Sport in the UK, however many fans unwilling or unable to pay to watch it were able to find streams relatively easily through simple online searches.
Twitter and YouTube appeared to be particularly prone to pirated streams, with a search for either fighter's name in each platform's search bar throwing up dozens of results that allow people to watch the fight.
In the UK, the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) has been leading an industry-wide crackdown on live streams, though this does not seem to have had much of an impact on live streams spreading across social media.
"FACT is leading the way in combatting digital piracy and working with PIPCU [Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit] and industry to crackdown on illegal streaming and to hold those behind them accountable for their actions," FACT CEO Kieron Sharp recently told The Independent.
"It is getting harder and harder to watch live sport illegally and so fans should be aware that if they were planning to watch the fight this way they are breaking the law.”
People uploading video of the fight to YouTube seem able to bypass anti-piracy measures by cropping the footage so that it appears to be zoomed in.
YouTube did not respond to a written request for comment, though the company states its position on copyrighted content in their terms of service.
A YouTube spokesperson has previously told The Independent that the company has "invested heavily" in copyright and content management tools, such as Content ID – a technology that provides rights holders with ways to monetise content they own.
In relation to the McGregor fight, a Twitter spokesperson told The Independent:"Twitter complies with the Millennium Digital Copyright Act as part of our company-wide policy on copyright infringement.
"We always urge traditional rights holders who perceive they are experiencing copyright infringement to file a notice through our internal reporting systems."
Links and sites offering to show the fight for free have become popular for cyber criminals to try to take advantage of unwitting fight fans.
Cyber experts have also warned of the hacking risks that people are exposing themselves to.
"Illegal streaming websites also tend to prompt adware in the form of pop-up windows that can look like software updates or even anti-virus messages that encourage users to click on them in order to install add-ons or run a virus scan," Joep Gommers, CEO of the security firm EclecticIQ, told The Independent ahead of the fight.
"In reality, however, they do the opposite and download malware to the computer instead."
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