Man defends his use of copyright football streams by insisting he needs them to ‘train his AI model’

A Basingstoke man has today defended his use of copyright-protected football coverage, insisting that without it, his start-up AI business will fail.

Despite warnings from the authorities that using illegal streams could see him finded thousands of pounds and even face time in prison, Williams insisted he was on the right side of the law.

Simon Williams, 41, told us, “I’ve seen the news, I’ve listened to the billionaire tech-bros. I know how this works. I’ve heard the likes of Facebook, Google and OpenAI insisting that they must be allowed access to all of the copyright material on the Internet – for free – or their businesses will fail, and I’m exactly same.

“Yes, to the untrained eye, it might look like I’m simply watching Premier League matches on a dodgy stream on my laptop while drinking a beer, but what I’m actually doing is building up a huge data library for my AI model.

“Right now it just looks like I’m trying to save £100 a month on subscriptions to Sky, TNT and Amazon, but in a few years time when I’ve figures out how computers works, you’ll be able to ask my tool to show you a full match between Manchester United’s 1999 treble winners and Manchester City’s 2023 treble winners.

“Probably. Either way, if it’s a defence good enough for Zuckerberg, then it’s a defence good enough for me.”