A BOXING fan is in hot water after streaming the Danny Green vs Anthony Mundine fight on Facebook Live, with Foxtel warning it will take action against him.

At one point, more than 150,000 people were watching Darren Sharpe’s live stream, avoiding spending money to see the final professional fight between the rivals on Foxtel’s pay-per-view.

But what the Brisbane mechanic didn’t count on was the company using its technology to catch up with him and send him a warning.

The pay TV company then cut off his and other live Facebook streams — as well as pirate versions shared on YouTube and Periscope to allow fans to watch for free.

Foxtel CEO Peter Tonagh told news.com.au that people streaming pay-per-view TV was a threat to the future of live events and the livelihoods of thousands of people who work on producing the content.

“Foxtel spends over $900 million each year on the production of local content including live sports,” he said. “This investment is only possible when the rights to that content can be protected. Without copyright protection, many of these events and productions would not exist and the thousands of people employed in their creation would not have jobs.

“The incident with Facebook last night is not just theft. It is a threat to the future viability of live events such as boxing and to the sustainability of the content industry generally.

“The instigators of the illegal streams on Facebook were aware that what they were doing is illegal, they were reminded of this by Foxtel staff and one has gone so far as to create a fundraising page in anticipation of his legal costs. As you would expect, Foxtel will be taking appropriate action.”

“We note and acknowledge some media commentary around the need for Foxtel to increase accessibility to these events over our IP streaming services and intend to address this in the future.”

At one point in his homemade broadcast, Mr Sharpe appeared to live-stream a call from his provider telling him to stop. “You just need to turn it off, I put a message up on your account before about it’s only for Foxtel subscribers,” a voice is heard saying.

While Facebook did not appear to try to stop the live video streams, Foxtel and Main Event tracked down account holders streaming the fight and revoked their subscriptions.

Error messages appeared on several live feeds reading: “This smartcard is for private residential viewing only” and TV screens went white.

It cost $59.95 to watch the match legitimately through Main Event and Foxtel.