Sky has levelled accusations at Amazon, claiming the tech giant isn't doing enough to curb the piracy of its sports rights through "jailbroken" Fire Sticks.
Sky's Group Chief Operating Officer, Nick Herm, stated that illicit viewing of its subscription content, which encompasses Premier League football, Formula 1 and boxing, is costing "hundreds of millions of dollars", with "about half" being accessed via manipulated Amazon Fire Sticks, as reported by .
"People will know you can get jailbroken Fire Sticks and you can access pirated services on them," he informed the FT Business of Football Summit. "There are football fans who literally have shirts printed with 'dodgy boxes and fire sticks' on them."
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"In addition to telcos, some of the tech giants – Amazon in particular – we do not get enough engagement to address some of those problems where people are buying these devices in bulk, they're breaking them and sideloading pirated apps on them – and people are just buying them.
"It's essentially organised crime. We work closely with the police. The sums are huge. It's a battle and you need a lot of people to lean in to solve it."
Sky's business strategy has long relied on subscribers to its live sport and its readiness to outbid competitors has helped maintain English football's coveted rights bubble.
It secured four of the five packages available for the next round of domestic rights to the Premier League, which totalled £6.7bn and covers the period from 2025 to 2029.
Jailbroken Fire Sticks ‘half of piracy’ say Sky
Piracy poses a significant threat to the value of sports streaming, with Dazn's global head of rights, Tom Burrows, describing it as "almost a crisis".
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Herm echoed these sentiments, stating: "It's a problem in all of our markets and we dedicate a lot of time to trying to defeat it. It's a never ending battle because there's always new technology and forms that emerge that you need to stay across."
Quantifying the issue is challenging, as Herm explained: "It's always difficult to put an exact number on it because if you ask people if they pirate or not they're not always going to be honest with you. When you do analysis there's plenty of evidence to show that it is sizeable."
The potential financial impact is staggering, with Herm adding: "How many of those people would convert to a legitimate service if piracy was no longer available? I don't know, but we're talking hundreds of millions of dollars – it's very substantial."
When asked about the extent of piracy accessed via modified Amazon Fire Sticks, he revealed: "It's a big percentage – probably about half of the piracy."
He warned that users often mistakenly believe they are using a legitimate service, even providing their credit card details to criminal gangs.
In response to these concerns, Amazon stated its commitment to "committed to providing customers with a high-quality streaming experience while actively promoting a streaming landscape that respects intellectual property rights and encourages the responsible consumption of content."
The statement further read: "On Fire TV, we've always encouraged our customers to use legal channels for accessing content and have included on-device warnings informing customers of the risks associated with installing or using apps from unknown sources."