Vanguard Magazine

CYBER www.vanguardcanada.com DECEMBER 2019/JANUARY 2020 33 superimposed over the feed. The report also investigated third party apps that are enabled by BeoutQ. What it did not do is determine exactly who is behind BeoutQ. It is clear that BeoutQ is protected by powerful forces within Saudi Arabia. The New York Times reported that FIFA and other soccer leagues have been unable to find legal counsel in Saudi Arabia to rep- resent them. Over the past 15 months, they contacted at least nine law firms in Saudi Arabia only to have each of them refuse outright or recuse themselves af- ter initially agreeing to serve as counsel. Sounds like they got a quiet phone call from "on high" advising them not to take the case. The Times also speculated that Saud al-Qahtani, a senior aide to Mo- hammed bin Salman, the crown prince and power behind the throne, might be behind BeoutQ. Remember hybrid war- fare and deniability? While FIFA's efforts to out the perpe- trators are laudable, one wonders how much success they will have. Clearly the strategy is to maintain pressure and try to strip away the deniability veil, causing as much embarrassment as possible to the Saudi regime. But does the regime re- ally care? If this is one more way for the Saudis to stick their finger in the eye of the Qatari regime, they will continue to do it as long as possible in an attempt to bring the annoying little cousin to heel. If the disgraceful Khashoggi affair is any guide, the response will be "deny, deny, deny" until caught red-handed and then blame everything on rogue minions. This is not to suggest that Qatar is to- tally blameless in the political dispute. Apart from Al-Jazeera's well documented coverage of (one might even say support for) politically toxic groups like the Mus- lim Brotherhood and Hamas, there have been complaints that inappropriate po- litical commentary has found its way into BeIN's Arabic language soccer coverage. Now, this article is not about who is right and who is wrong in the Middle East. That's a mug's game because, in most cases, there is no clear right and wrong or black and white. The region is covered by a cloud of grey, including grey zone warfare that includes using drones, media campaigns based on propaganda and disinformation, and pirating soccer broadcasts. One hopes that one day Saudi Arabia and Qatar will patch up their dif- ferences and that BeoutQ will disappear. The longer term problem is that by then audiences will have become conditioned to expecting something for virtually noth- ing (the BeoutQ box costs about $100 per year, giving access to a wide range of top notch sports and other content), and pira- cy will continue in one form or another. As I wrote in a blog posting I did earlier this year ("Sports and Copyright – Why Sports Fans are Cheating Themselves When They Stream Pirated Content"), piracy of sports broadcasts is becoming a growing problem globally. There are technical and educational means to combat it, but when piracy becomes an instrument of warfare, even if it is hybrid warfare, there is a limit to what broadcasting networks and sports leagues can do when they get caught in the crossfire. Hugh Stephens has more than 35 years of government and business experience in the Asia-Pacific region. Based in Victoria, BC, Canada, he is currently Vice Chair of the Ca- nadian Committee on Pacific Economic Co- operation (CANCPEC), Senior Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada, Execu- tive Fellow at the School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary, and an associate faculty member in the School of Business at Royal Roads University, Victoria, BC. Before returning to Canada in December 2009, he was Senior Vice President (Public Policy) for Asia-Pacific for Time Warner for almost a decade, located at the company's regional headquarters in Hong Kong. In this capacity he managed Time Warner's pub- lic policy program in Asia Pacific for Turner Broadcasting, HBO, Warner Bros, Time Inc. and AOL. In recent years, he has written and commented extensively on Canada's engagement with the Asia Pacific region and has testified before the Foreign Affairs and International Trade committee of the Canadian Senate. To view his articles, visit https://hughstephensblog.net. The longer term problem is that by then audi- ences will have become conditioned to expecting something for virtually nothing (the BeoutQ box costs about $100 per year, giving access to a wide range of top notch sports and other content), and piracy will continue in one form or another.

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