Google Asked to Deindex iptv-org, The World’s Largest Free IPTV Repo

NelsonG · November 23, 2023

While premium IPTV services have built a reputation for beating legal platforms on both selection and price, they also cost at least some money to access.

Sites offering ‘IPTV for free’ can go either way, but thanks to so-called ‘FAST’ services such as Pluto TV and Peacock TV, taking risks is no longer necessary. That’s if older mainstream content scratches the itch and users don’t mind lots of advertising.

Something For Everybody

If showman P. T. Barnum had offered IPTV, the content indexed by iptv-org would’ve been the perfect fit. An eclectic mix of thousands of free TV channels from all over the planet, complete with EPG and the ability to fine tune exactly the type of content received via customizable playlists, iptv-org really does have something for everybody.

As a result, iptv-org’s repo is regularly found trending on GitHub and this week is no exception.

The fact that iptv-org aims to index streams that are already publicly available is an interesting angle, since at least in theory it makes the project a less straightforward target for rightsholders. A legal notice on the repo explains how rightsholders can have links taken down but of course, removing links does nothing to remove the actual streams.

Not that any of those pointers make any difference to some, however.

LaLiga Battles Pirate IPTV and iptv-org

Top-tier Spanish football league LaLiga (Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional) finds itself in perpetual conflict with pirate IPTV providers and controversy is rarely far behind.

In 2018, LaLiga updated its Android app, turning fans’ phones into spying devices capable of identifying unauthorized broadcasts in bars and restaurants. That resulted in a large fine for privacy breaches but didn’t deter a more recent proposal to remotely delete pirate apps from users’ phones.

LaLiga also sends conventional DMCA takedown notices to numerous sites and services. The truncated example below dated November 20, 2023, was sent to Google and demands the removal of over 1,100 URLs from search results.

The first 18 URLs concern the iptv-org repo on GitHub, based on the specific allegation that “the reported website sells channel services or subscriptions to servers that provide decryption keys for payment channels in an unauthorized manner.”

LaLiga Takedown Notice (Full version courtesy of Lumen Database)

While iptv-org does accept donations via OpenCollective, it doesn’t sell access to channel services or subscriptions. Since the entire point of the project is to index streams already open to the public, the claim that iptv-org sells subscriptions to servers that provide decryption keys is hard to fathom.

Google Yet to Make a Decision

Whether any of LaLiga’s content appeared on a channel indexed by iptv-org is impossible to determine from the information to hand. The notice references no specific content allegedly infringed or any specific URLs/channels where infringement allegedly took place. Instead it tries to deindex the project itself from Google search by targeting everything from its main page to pages dedicated to licensing and frequently asked questions.

At the time of writing, Google lists 92.1% of the 1,151 URLs in the notice as ‘pending’ which suggests the search engine may be taking a closer look.

Whether GitHub has received any direct complaints from LaLiga about iptv-org is currently unknown. However, since GitHub itself has been heavily targeted by erroneous LaLiga takedown notices, additional scrutiny probably wouldn’t go amiss.