What is IPTV
Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television formats. Unlike downloaded media, IPTV offers the ability to stream the source media continuously. As a result, a client media player can begin playing the content (such as a TV channel) almost immediately. This is known as streaming media.
Although IPTV uses the Internet protocol it is not limited to television streamed from the Internet (Internet television). IPTV is widely deployed in subscriber-based telecommunications networks with high-speed access channels into end-user premises via set-top boxes or other customer-premises equipment. IPTV is also used for media delivery around corporate and private networks. IPTV in the telecommunications arena is notable for its ongoing standardization process (e.g., European Telecommunications Standards Institute).
IPTV services may be classified into live television and live media, with or without related interactivity; time shifting of media, e.g., catch-up TV (replays a TV show that was broadcast hours or days ago), start-over TV (replays the current TV show from its beginning); and video on demand (VOD) which involves browsing and viewing items of a media catalogue.
When you want to use IPTV to view television shows on your computer, you make use of a certain file with an M3U file extension. This file is used by your computer’s video player to identify certain channels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Protocol_television
Internet TV, or IPTV, is an attractive term. It broadcasts television channels directly via the web rather than through the traditional means of air navigation, but of course there are many different forms of IPTV, including:
Channels offer their live broadcasts on their website or on YouTube or in a special application.
Sites offering live broadcasts of different channels.
Applications that purchase and publish broadcasts whether live or on-demand.
Application-specific extensions such as Kodi, Plex, and Emby.
IPTV subscriptions from external sources away from original channels.
Finally, although it does not broadcast live, on-demand video services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are also under the IPTV umbrella and can be categorized with it, if IPTV is a protocol through which live and indirect streaming of channels or visual content On any device that supports this service over the Internet, and we have talked about the best applications for iPhone to watch TV channels as well as in a separate article on the applications of television on Android, and we periodically publish many IPTV applications on our site and you can access them from the IPTV tag here.
Is IPTV legal?
If we get to the main question, is IPTV legal? The answer, of course, depends on many criteria. Let’s look at some of the different types of IPTV that we mentioned in the previous title to determine whether they are legal or not. Here are the types of legal live broadcasts that you can follow without fear as well as illegal IPTV.
There are many channels that provide the possibility to follow them directly on their site or on YouTube and in most cases are free open channels. Of course, the IPTV service is completely legal, all channels are fully licensed from their source.
–There are also many direct legal broadcasting services that collect a lot of channels and movies legally, and here they buy the content of the legal text of the channels owner and then sold to the user, and most of these services are paid, including:
- Netflix
- Amazon Prime
- Hulu
- HBO Now
- Hooq
- Filmstruck
- Hotstar
- Sling TV
- shahid MBC
And many other services, these services remain legal for you. VPN or proxy to open it may get out of what is legal to the pirate even if you have a paid account.
In conclusion, there are some legal IPTV, others are not. You should be on alert so you can identify illegal services and stay on the right side of the law. In the Arab world there is no content monitoring so far (not all maybe). Even if you watch channels legally or movies or download torrents, there is no censorship of you, But in European countries (not all) and America, if a user tries to download a movie and watch a live broadcast, he can quickly fall into trouble with his Internet service provider, or worse with the copyright holder.