Every day millions of people download TV-shows without getting permission from rightsholders.

While some do so because they find the legal alternatives too expensive, there’s a large group that simply has no legal options available to them.

The latter is the case in India, where the Netflix original series “House of Cards” can’t be seen legally since the movie streaming service hasn’t rolled out there yet. As a result, Indians can only watch the popular series on demand through unauthorized channels.

According to House of Card’s Kevin Spacey, the Indians are turning to these pirate sources in large numbers. During the International Indian Film Academy Awards in Tampa, Florida, he noted that the TV-show is suspiciously popular in India.

“House of Cards is really big in India, I discovered,” Spacey said at the red carpet event on Saturday.

The actor isn’t all too happy about this popularity, and accuses the Indians of thievery. Since Netflix’ streaming services aren’t available in India yet, they literally don’t have the “right” to see it.

“Except isn’t it funny that Netflix doesn’t exist there yet. Which means that you’re stealing it,” Spacey added.

Whether Spacey is unhappy with the show’s fans in India, or the fact that they have no legal options is not entirely clear. However, the only real solution to the problem is to ensure that Indians can watch the show too, without breaking the law.

The problem that’s highlighted by the House of Cards actor remains one of the major challenges for the TV-studios. For decades, the industry has gotten used to delaying international premieres for month or years, something that fans no longer accept.

Luckily, a lot of progress has been made in recent years, with most popular U.S. TV-series premiering on the same day in dozens of countries around the world.

While “availability” is no silver bullet that can stop piracy altogether, it’s a crucial first step to take.

Update: Perhaps Spacey was a bit too quick with his “stealing” allegations. House of Cards is available on Zee Cafe in India, although not on demand. This means that there is a legal option for those who have access to the channel via cable or satellite.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

This week we have four newcomers in our chart.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the most downloaded movie this week.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

Ranking	(last week)	Movie	IMDb Rating / Trailer
torrentfreak.com
1	(5)	Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Cam/TS)	8.3 / trailer
2	(…)	That Awkward Moment	6.2 / trailer
3	(…)	Vampire Academy	6.3 / trailer
4	(1)	Son of Batman	6.3 / trailer
5	(2)	The Machine	6.3 / trailer
6	(…)	Her	8.2 / trailer
7	(…)	Rio 2 (HDTS)	6.8 / trailer
8	(3)	The Physician	7.3 / trailer
9	(4)	Ride Along	6.4 / trailer
10	(9)	Frozen	8.1 / trailer

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

During the past few years, streaming portals such as Movie2K/4K, Primewire, and other similar sites have gathered huge momentum. Offering movies directly in the browser after just a couple of clicks has opened these sites to even the least tech-savvy Internet user.

With bandwidth costs reducing and apparently good money to be made from streaming video, dozens of streaming sites have appeared hoping to take a piece of the pie. In some cases this has led to confusion, with the appearance of sites deliberately designed to look like those operated by competitors in order to steal traffic.

Those tired of such antics need to brace themselves, because thanks to a new service things are about to get a whole lot worse. Or better, depending on perspective.

See important update at the end of post

TVStreamCMS is a system designed to take the sting out of setting up a video streaming site like Movie4K or Primewire. When we say take out the sting, what we really mean is make it ridiculously simple.

This content management system claims to condense months and years of hard work into a setup taking just a few minutes. Buyers get all the code they need to launch their own site, and movies and TV shows are added automatically by the suppliers.

The operators of TVStreamCMS told TF that their motivations for creating the tool were simple.

“The reason why we made this is not just to make it possible for everyone to have their own streaming site, but also to make it easy for all TV Shows and Movie webmasters, who have for some time waited and only dreamed of making an automated website,” they explained.

“Webmasters no longer have to manually update the episodes daily nor update the movies as they come out in theaters because TVStreamCMS has it done automatically with the use of just their server.”

Looking around the TVStreamCMS site the system seems fairly self explanatory. In exchange for a minimum payment of around $200, users can walk away with a script that creates a site just like XYZFLIX, a demo site that shows what the system can do.

But is it really that simple? To find out, TorrentFreak spoke to ‘M’, the operator of a streaming portal built with TVStreamCMS.

“It took me about 5-10 minutes to set up and then the best thing about the script is that it is all automatic so movies and episodes are added to the site automatically,” M explains.

In addition to the basic package there are also some bolt-ons available. ‘M’ bought the ‘Primewire’ package for $400, which enables the user to make a site that looks and operates just like Primewire, such as the example shown here. TVStreamCMS claims it will add “50,000 movies from sources added to your site daily” and grab content from iwatchonline, SeriesGate, Project Free TV, Vodly and Primewire.

So are many people taking advantage of the offer? At the moment there appears to be quite a few sites being indexed by Google and as illustrated by the image below, completely unsurprisingly they look very similar indeed.

With the people behind the site selling packages to clone not only Primewire but also Sidereel, the potential for confusion among users is pretty high, and no doubt some buyers will attempt to maximize on that by operating domain names similar to already popular sites.

If this cookie-cutter approach to site building really takes off theres the potential for dozens or even hundreds of similar looking streaming sites to appear. However, since each site will be relying on the same central sources for their support and content, they will all be vulnerable to the fortunes of others.

It therefore seems reasonable to presume that one day buyers could wake up and find that nothing works anymore, but for $200 they might be prepared to take the risk. After all, it won’t take long to recoup with the dozens of popups and fake download buttons many streaming sites seem to enjoy.

Update: Emails received by TorrentFreak have reported many issues with TVStreamCMS including:

- The site was ripped from another project (TVSS)
- The scripts don’t work correctly
- That money paid for broken content was not refunded
- Work carried out by others was never paid
- The site template was taken from Trakt.tv

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Over the past several years, numerous studies have shown that “pirates” are more engaged consumers than their non-sharing counterparts.

They not only consume more media, but also pay more for legal content. While the average visit to The Pirate Bay doesn’t cost anything, the above suggests that it’s a good venue for indie creators to advertise their work.

This is exactly what a group of indie sci-fi creators thought, so last weekend they teamed up with VODO to promote their work on The Pirate Bay. The end result is the “Otherworlds” sci-fi bundle, which includes a wide variety of content, such as books, games, music, comics and videos.

The Pirate Bay was kind enough to promote the bundle for nearly three days, replacing the site’s iconic logo with a prominent banner. Those who clicked on the banner could download a torrent with free sample content, but those who wanted more had to pay up.

Pay for content???

TorrentFreak reached out to VODO’s Jamie King, who organized the campaign, to learn more about the results. As expected, the Pirate Bay promotion generated a ton of traffic, over 100,000 visitors. Not all of this traffic resulted in sales, but overall results turned out quite well.

“The Pirate Bay helped us to make about $5,000 of sales from 375 customers. The simple immensity of the traffic really helped to move some bundles,” King tells us.

The “Otherworlds” bundle presents people with three payment options. A “pay what you want” option for five titles, a “beat the average” option with seven extra pieces of content, and a “beat the premium” option for the high rollers.

Interestingly, Pirate Bay users mostly picked the latter option. In total, 232 Pirate Bay visitors chose the most expensive “beat the premium” option, paying $18.11 on average. Another 72 visitors went for the cheapest option with an average payment of $1.78, and 67 people ended up in the middle with an $10.61 average.

Across all paying Pirate Bay visitors the average payment was $13.52. Interestingly enough, this is more than the average paid by people who came from other sites, or social media. That said, King notes that the ratio of incoming visitors to buying visitors was relatively low, about a tenth of that from other sites.

Those who have been reading TorrentFreak for a while may remember that VODO has been around for a few years already. Initially it started out by sharing torrents for free, and asking the public for donations. While some people were happy to donate, this model wasn’t very sustainable.

“To really create a success for a filmmaker, we’d have to generate literally millions of downloads. But it wasn’t do-able on a regular basis,” King tells us.

“So for us, putting up a ‘pay what you want’-wall has been a really simple and successful move. We still offer free sample torrents / mini-bundles, but basically, if you want the proper bundle, you have to choose to pay something,” he adds.

Conversions increased after the switch as more and more people started to contribute. The other advantage was that more creators were willing to join, as they were guaranteed a payment, while keeping control over how long their content remains available.

“Particularly, we can get much better content than if we were using torrents. The truth is most creators don’t have the rights to share their work freely, even if they wanted to,” King says.

In other words, if you want Pirate Bay users to contribute, the paywall system is a better way to do so than giving away everything for free in return for an optional donation. Perhaps this sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s how it works.

Finally, it’s worth noting that VODO has built-in an option for those who are not happy with the suggested payments. Beneath each offer is a “that’s too much for me” button where people can suggest the price they are willing to pay. Interestingly, hundreds of Pirate Bay users suggested their alternative price. In a week or so VODO plans to honor most of these offers, generating thousands of dollars in aftersales.

All in all the above shows that sites such as The Pirate Bay and EZTV, where it was promoted as well, can certainly help to finance indie creators. However, simply giving away content for free is not always the best option. As is often the case, people sometimes need a small incentive to contribute.

The “Otherworlds” bundle is still available today, and those who are interested can check out the offer here.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

With over 33 million streaming subscribers in the U.S. alone, Netflix is one the major providers of online video entertainment.

The company claims to be a piracy killer, and previously noted that unauthorized P2P traffic reduced in countries where their services were rolled out.

Interestingly enough, the streaming service also has a lot to gain from file-sharing technologies. A recent Netflix job ad spotted by Ars Technica, reveals that they are considering using P2P technology to improve their streaming services.

“Netflix seeks a seasoned Senior Software Engineer with a special focus in peer-to-peer networks,” the company writes. The description of the new position has a clear focus on researching the possibility to allow users to stream videos via peer-to-peer technology.

- Research and architecture of large-scale peer-to-peer network technology as applicable to Netflix streaming.
- Liaise with internal client and toolkit teams to integrate P2P as an additional delivery mechanism.
- Design and develop tools for the operation of peer-to-peer enabled clients in a production environment.

Netflix mentions that the company is currently responsible for over 30% of all downstream traffic. Should it move towards P2P streaming, Netflix will also be the number one in terms of upstream bandwidth, a position currently dominated by BitTorrent traffic.

Netflix’ job ad

The option of P2P-assisted streaming became of interest again this year, after Netflix signed a deal with Comcast to pay for direct access to its network. With P2P technology, Netflix has the option to increase its streaming capabilities without additional bandwidth costs.

In fact, not only could the company achieve superior streaming quality by using P2P technology, its bandwidth bills could even decrease.

Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent, would welcome a P2P-powered Netflix. He previously said that video delivery via P2P is far superior to the systems currently used by Netflix and other video services.

“The fact is that by using BitTorrent it’s possible to give customers a much better experience with much less cost than has ever been possible before. It’s really not being utilized properly and that’s really unfortunate,” Cohen said.

According to Cohen, Netflix’s video streaming quality is currently less than acceptable. “I actually don’t have a TV at home myself, but I do watch stuff on Netflix and I find it very frustrating because the video quality is really terrible,” he noted.

With P2P-assisted streaming it will be possible to stream videos in a higher quality than is currently possible, but whether Netflix will use a BitTorrent-inspired technology or something different is unknown at this point.

In any case, it’s an interesting development to watch.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.