People behind a Vietnamese website are facing possible lawsuits and legal charges for illegally live-streaming matches of the 2018 Asian Games (Asiad) men’s football tournament on their platform while the Southeast Asian country has yet to own broadcasting rights of the event.

The website, named Xoilac TV, has recently become a hot topic after airing Asiad’s opening ceremony as well as many football matches of the continental sporting competition, which kicked off on Saturday.

“Xoilac TV” was the most trending keyword on Google in Vietnam on Sunday with more than 500,000 searches.

The site has an average of 500,000 to a million views per day, online newspaper VietNamNet reported, citing statistics from Alexa, a web traffic analysis provider.

While the majority of viewers are completely aware that the live-streamed broadcasts on the website are against the law, they had no other choice as no Vietnamese broadcaster has purchased Asiad telecast rights as of Monday.

Sports lovers in the country had been waiting for the sporting event to see their favorite stars in the Vietnamese U-23 team compete in men’s football, as well as other top athletes including swimmer Anh Vien, shooter Hoang Xuan Vinh, and runner Le Tu Chinh.

The broadcasting package was offered at US$1.8 million, which was deemed too high for any television station in Vietnam to buy.

Xoilac TV does not have legitimate rights to stream the event via the OTT (over-the-top) or Internet-based method.

A screenshot detailing the top trending Google searches in Vietnam on August 19, 2018

The website live-streams Asian Games coverage from foreign websites and channels to its users for free.

It has been taking the livestreams and allowing its viewers to watch the competitions complimentarily.

Besides its website at xoilac.tv, Xoilac also has a Facebook page and a YouTube channel.

The website is hosted in the United States, thus Vietnamese law has effectively little to no control over it. It is also difficult to trace the real owner of the site.

Online ad experts in Vietnam said the moderators of Xoilac TV could pocket hundreds of thousands of dollars from the illicit livestreams.

Xoilac said on its Facebook page that it actually suffered losses worth over VND40 million ($1,735) providing the free livestreams to its viewers.

“This is a free-of-charge website offering high-quality livestreams,” the site said, adding that it had spent up to hundreds of millions of dong (VND100 million = $4,338) on infrastructure and operation costs, and only placed a few ads on the platform.

Xoilac also claimed that multiple fake websites had been stealing and benefiting from its livestreams.

Legal experts said that moderators of Xoilac TV could be sued by the holder of the 2018 Asiad broadcasting rights.

The Vietnamese Penal Code highlights that infringement of copyright carries the maximum punishment of five years in prison.

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