Free live streams for Paddy Pimblett fight spread online despite piracy warnings

Paddy Pimblett steps into the Octogan at UFC 282 on Saturday to face Jared Gordon, in what is arguably his toughest MMA contest to date.

A win could see the lightweight liverpudlian enter the official UFC rankings for the first time, though Paddy the Baddy’s popularity means he is already the co-main event in Las Vegas alongside the light heavyweight bout between Jan Blachowicz and Magomed Ankalaev.

Fight fans will be able to watch the contest on ESPN+ and UFC Fight Pass in the US, as well as BT Sport in the UK and Ireland early on Sunday morning for anyone paying the £25 monthly fee.

As with other major fights in 2022, the high price to watch UFC 282 means many fans will likely seek illegal free live streams online.

Dozens of illegal live streaming sites have popped up in recent years, with some attracting millions of viewers for box office fights.

Links to watch the fights for free typically spread across social media platforms like Twitter in the build-up to the fight, as well as in dedicated forums on sites like Reddit – though they are often removed due to the anti-piracy policies of the companies.

“Industrial-scale” piracy means the sites are also easily found through search engines like DuckDuckGo, which are much harder to take down for authorities due to the domains being registered in countries that have lax laws when it comes to copyright laws.

The prevalence of free live streams comes despite a renewed crackdown on online piracy from law enforcement in the UK, as well as warnings from cyber security experts that they pose a risk to online viewers.

Recent research from security firm Zscaler also found that a surge of live streaming sites were targeting football fans looking for ways to watch World Cup matches online for free.

“The Fifa World Cup 2022 has brought with it a spike in cyber attacks targeting football fans through fake streaming sites and lottery scams, leveraging the rush and excitement around these uncommon events to infect users with malware,” the firm wrote in a blog post detailing the threat.

“In most of the current and past cases observed by the researchers, newly registered domains are used to host the scam sites but in a few examples legitimate established sites like Xiaomi, Reddit, OpenSea and LinkedIn host fake links that redirect to malicious sites.”