MyP2P

» see myp2p.eu as it lived, on the wayback machine

~ the eulogy ~

MyP2P was a timetable. Each row held a match and a kickoff time, and beside it sat a set of links that opened a peer-to-peer TV client on the right channel. The video came from somewhere else, often a Chinese sports channel that a stranger was rebroadcasting through SopCast or TVAnts. The logo spelled the idea out: "My peer-to-peer, the best guide for all your live sports."

The footer of the 2007 homepage reads "Copyright 2005-2007 MyP2P". A donation appeal dated 21 February 2007 says the staff had not asked for support "in the past 1,5 years", which puts the start in the second half of 2005. The decimal comma hints at where they were typing from, and so does the "View in Dutch" link in the menu.

The oldest capture of myp2p.eu is from 12 June 2006, three days into the World Cup in Germany. The whole site had been turned into a tournament special with a free prediction league and pages on stadiums and referees. It promised "the best streams, from P2P and non-P2P channels" and listed six clients to install: PPLive, PPStream, Sopcast, TVAnts, PCast, TVKoo.

~ the dossier ~

~ a grid of kickoff times ~

By 2011 the layout had a server-time dropdown running from -12:00 to +13:00, so the grid could be read in local time anywhere. A beginners guide walked new visitors through installing the clients and a forum took the questions the guide did not answer. The welcome text said "the information we give is fully free" and "you only need some clients to download and then you're ready to go". It named MLB, NHL, NBA, cricket and tennis next to football, plus a Live TV section for ordinary channels.

I knew the name from football forums and never needed the grid. The matches I followed were on a Turkish pay-TV subscription. MyP2P was built for the opposite case, a fan whose league sat behind a subscription that was not sold in their country at any price.

~ the hague, january 2009 ~

On 22 January 2009 the District Court of The Hague granted Eredivisie NV and the Dutch clubs an injunction against MyP2P without hearing the site first. The court found that showing club logos beside the links confused the public about where the streams came from, and that making the broadcasts reachable without permission infringed copyright. Streaming of Eredivisie matches had to "cease immediately".

Five days later a notice went up on the homepage: "Because of pending legal proceedings, Myp2p has removed all links in the following competions". Seven leagues followed, running from the Dutch Eredivisie to the NHL. The English Premier League was on the list. The forum went dark as well. It came back on 11 February with a post saying the staff were "still of the opinion that we don't do anything wrong or illegal", and quoting a wise man: "You can be right, but it's a different story to get your rights."

~ pending the outcome ~

The archive last saw the working homepage on 19 August 2011. Its newest news item was two months old and announced SopCast 3.4.0. On 23 August TorrentFreak reported that myp2p.eu and myp2pforum.eu both carried the same registry status: "This domain name has been registered and is on hold. It is active but may not be traded or transferred pending the outcome of legal activity."

Nobody said who had started that activity. A site administrator told TorrentFreak the staff were "really busy setting up the new site" and not ready for a formal statement.

The new site was Wiziwig, the same schedule on a fresh domain. It ran until 1 January 2015 and closed with a notice blaming a new Spanish copyright law, under which a link site could be fined up to 600,000 euros. myp2p.eu does not answer today.

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