People used Periscope to stream the boxing match

May 5, 2015 08:09 GMT  ·  By

With a little help from Twitter, Periscope managed to gather more than 1 million users in less than a month and quickly dethroned Meerkat, the live streaming app that had owned the crown before its launch. However, it was thanks to the match of the century that the app managed to boost its popularity.

People used the live streaming app to broadcast the fight between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao for those who were unwilling to pay the spicy price to watch it live. In poor quality and shaky from the thrill, but live, nonetheless.

"This is absolutely a new form of piracy," NewYorker.com editor Nicholas Thompson said on CBS This Morning."It's definitely something important, it was fascinating to watch, it was a little bit unexpected and it was a big deal."

Although well-received by users, not everyone was thrilled about the live streaming of the match. It was reported that HBO and Showtime had tried contacting Periscope representatives during the fight asking them to remove the streams.

Is Periscope breaking copyright laws?

And it’s not the first time that the television company has been in a conflict with the Twitter-owned streaming app. Last month, HBO asked Periscope to take down streams of the Game of Thrones season premier. Twitter denied that the app was breaking any rules and said that HBO’s claims were ungrounded.

And Twitter’s CEO tweet shortly after the match ended did not help either. Many condemned the fact the he proclaimed Periscope the victor of the day, saying that he encourages piracy and the breaking of copyright rules.

Following the backlash from people who reacted angrily on Twitter, it was revealed that the CEO was not referring to the illegal live streaming of the game, but to the fact that Periscope had been used to broadcast live from Manny Pacquiao’s dressing room, which was also acknowledged by HBO.

Since event organizers cannot prevent people from bringing their phones along, there is not much they can do. However, some have come up with new solutions to prevent similar things from happening, like restricting live streaming during important events.