Dazn, stop double vision with a single user

The matter has been discussed since the morning of November 9, when the rumor has spread that the sports streaming platform dazn would have interrupted a condition explicitly provided for in the contract with users and from the current season: stop sharing your subscription with two devices. More specifically, stop using the two devices at the same time from different IP addresses.

The group, which owns the broadcasting rights for all the matches of the A league for the next three seasons including the current one, the Europa League and many other football competitions (such as the Spanish Liga) and many other disciplines, such as boxing or volleyball, has not made any statements and therefore has not confirmed the news . But thea feeling is that we are going in this direction though not in the times that many have speculated in the last few hours: we will probably get there a few weeks later, between the end of the year and the beginning of 2022. Little consolation.

The change should apply to everyone: both historical users and those who subscribed only during the summer, joining last July’s offer from 19.99 euros per month. But obviously before the unilateral changes to the contract (the so-called concurrency was provided for in point 8.3 of the agreement) the company must inform subscribers in time so as to exercise the withdrawal within 30 days. But of course with the “light” subscription mode typical of Dazn, it is an almost useless formality in practical terms: no one will recover the beak of a penny if not, perhaps, the last month of subscription.

Obviously, on Twitter and on social media in general, there are no counts annoyed, angry and in many cases bitterly ironic reactions to the sound of memes, jokes or colds of users and subscribers who threaten not to renew their subscription or, worse, to rely on piracy systems (read, the famous pezzotto). And in fact Dazn’s move, if confirmed as it seems, was born with that intention: to maintain high the value of the Serie A championship rights and fight piracy more strongly, among other things affecting those platforms that favor the sharing of subscriptions connecting even strangers with the sole aim of lowering the subscription price. They are platforms in point of law legal but in substance it is certainly not always said that those subscriptions with family plans are really used by members of the same nucleus, even an enlarged one. Quite the contrary: their raison d’etre is precisely to put in contact completely unknown people.

The point, however, is that this is true for Dazn up to a certain point: the concurrency it is currently limited to only two accounts and the risk is that the single subscription, for example, subscribed by parents and children who live in different cities, disappears in favor of piracy rather than becoming a double subscription. In short, it is a bet that for now only achieves a double objective: to dissatisfy subscribers by modifying a guaranteed condition at the time of subscription. without any guarantee of conversion of the undeclared into legal subscriptions.

Double vision at the same time remains allowed, of course, only for two devices connecting using the same IP address. That is typically from the same home Wi-Fi network or from the same 4 or 5G mobile hotspot. According to Dazn, since the beginning of September, while watching the matches, on average 20% of season tickets would experience the use of this “simultaneous dual user”: are we sure that slice automatically transforms into brand new subscriptions?

Other stories of Vanity Fair that may interest you

Massimo Ambrosini (and the new DAZN team): «The next Serie A? We hope it will show a restart “

«The making Of», DAZN announces the series starring Ronaldo, Neymar and Mourinho