A father-of-one was threatened with an £85,000 bill from Sky after his iPad was used to stream Anthony Joshua’s championship fight over Facebook Live.
Boxing fan Craig ‘Fozzy’ Foster, 34 from Scarborough, was watching Joshua’s fight against Wladimir Klitschko in April when one of his friends picked up his iPad, ran up Facebook Live, and then pointed it at his TV.
Sky tracked down Mr Foster from a watermark of his account number which was visible during the broadcast that was watched by more than 4,000 people.
The TV company then cancelled his subscription and demanded he pay them £85,000 for the loss in revenue from pay-per-view sales.
The fight, which Joshua dramatically won in the 11th round, was shown on Sky Box Office for £19.95.
Craig Foster, 34, apologised after one of his friends picked up his iPad and streamed Anthony Joshua’s fight on Facebook Live, saying ‘I’m just a bloke who had a few drinks with his friends’
Mr Foster was bombarded with letters from Sky after streaming Anthony Joshua’s fight against Wladimir Klitschko (pictured) on Facebook Live
Mr Foster, a coachbuilder, apologised and said Sky’s response had been ‘heavy-handed’.
‘I’m just a bloke who had a few drinks with his friends’, he explained.
Speaking to the Sunday Mirror Mr Foster said: ‘They’re demanding the names and addresses of all my mates who were round that night but I’m not going to give them up. I said I’d take the rap.
‘They’re making an example of me.
‘I know streaming the fight was wrong. I didn’t stop my friend but I was watching the boxing.’
Mr Foster said he had been inundated with letters from Sky’s law firm, Foot Anstey LLP.
One demanded he pay £5,000 in legal costs or go to court for the full amount for the ‘unlawful redistribution of Sky’s content’.
Mr Foster agreed to pay that amount but now plans to fight it in court, claiming he was given only 24 hours to seek advice.
Neil Parkes, from Foot Anstey, told The Mirror: ‘Mr Foster broke the law. He has acknowledged his wrongdoing, apologised and signed a legally binding agreement to pay a sum of £5,000 to Sky.’
Coachbuilder Mr Foster apologised and said Sky’s response had been ‘heavy-handed’
After the fight Facebook was criticised for failing to tackle sports piracy after more than 400,000 people watched Joshua’s fight against Klitschko on the social media site.
Illegal streams of the heavyweight title fight also appeared on Twitter’s Periscope video service and were watched on TV sets by viewers who had bought ‘fully-loaded’ set-top boxes with Kodi software.
Although Facebook removed many streams down during the fight, the copyright protection body said it was unacceptable that some remained live.