The legal online movie and TV show streaming landscape has expanded rapidly in recent years but has now developed its own issues.

From having no platforms just a few years ago, there are now many with each attempting to create space for their own exclusive offerings. As a result, consumers must now subscribe to them all at great expense to get everything they desire, something that most wallets are averse to.

At least ostensibly, this is the problem being addressed by AllTheStreams.fm, a self-proclaimed ‘pirate radio’ video site. At the time of writing it is streaming shows from Hulu, Disney+, Netflix, HBO Now, Prime Video and Showtime, all for free.

When we tuned in we were greeted by The Office from Netflix and The Mandalorian from Disney+.

Of course, the latest Disney shows being streamed online for free isn’t something one should ever expect. The AllTheStreams ‘manifesto’ is curious too.

“Netflix has all the Netflix stuff, Disney has all the Disney stuff, and never the twain shall meet. Let’s change that, however briefly,” it reads.

“Whenever media becomes inaccessible, piracy thrives again – from the 1960’s BBC 1-hour limit on pop music, to the iTunes store mp3 tyranny of the 00s. Today, All The Streams comes in response to the fragmentation and walled-garden paradigm that has risen to prominence for online video streaming services.”

The people behind AllTheStreams say they don’t care about several things, including but perhaps not limited to user-utility, scalability and terms of service. “All The Streams is made to revel in platform independence, and to demonstrate how even the most lo-fi hacks can be the equal of giants. We’re going to play anything and everything we feel like,” the manifesto continues.

“We’re going to make a frankensteinian playlist of media that none of these streaming platforms could ever recommend to you because it would cost them the profits of their exclusively-owned content. Sit back and enjoy the ride: like all pirate media offerings, we’re doing this for you.”

Given the tone, one could be forgiven for thinking that AllTheStreams.fm had just redirected to the PR department of The Pirate Bay, which is bizarrely half the way there. While The Pirate Bay has nothing to do with this site, the people behind it are a PR department of sorts.

In the bottom right-hand corner of the site are five fairly familiar letters – MSCHF. Said quickly we hear ‘mischief’, something that the company of the same name has caused plenty of.

MSCHF is a marketing company that claims to run on “structured chaos“. It previously developed a browser add-on that disguised Netflix viewing as a conference call, launched an Internet restaurant that transformed corporate perks into a tool to attack corporations, and sold Air Max 97s with ‘Holy Water’ in the sole.

So what’s this latest campaign all about? TorrentFreak spoke with CEO Gabriel Whaley who didn’t give away too much but pretty much admitted that the campaign is infringing copyrights.

“We don’t have any permissions to be running this whatsoever. But once one network shuts us down, five stand in their place!” he said.

That sounds a little bit like the pirate mantra (shut down one site, another five will appear) completely turned on its head, which is another curiosity. We put it to Whaley that if AllTheStreams doesn’t have permission to stream The Mandalorian online to the masses for free, then it’s possible that the Alliance For Creativity and Entertainment could be paying a visit quite soon.

We received no response to that thought but given MSCHF’s record, of engaging in over-the-top stunts to gain exposure, the legal aspect must have at least crossed the company’s mind. We asked if a calculation had been done to balance the potential marketing exposure against potential legal fees and what the endgame might be, but that didn’t help much either.

“Haha,” Whaley added. “MSCHF’s only endgame is the endgame itself.”

It’s almost impossible to work out what MSCHF is trying to achieve here. Maybe they have some kind of plan to bring all streaming services under one roof at a fair price and if so, that would be impressive, if brutally obvious. Given their history, however, it’s more likely they’re hoping to sell out a new line of exclusive sports clothing for cats made entirely of cheese.

If the company is looking for exposure, which it most certainly is, it has the right recipe here. Perhaps Disney will supply the crackers. Or the lawyers.

Drom: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review.

For weeks on end, the Coronavirus (COVID-19) has dominated the news. The disease continues to spread today and is severely disrupting society in some of the most affected areas.

Almost everyone appears to have an opinion on the matter and the latest news is followed closely across the world. However, people’s interest in the topic goes further than news alone. As we reported on Saturday, it has now spread to the entertainment sector as well. In recent weeks movie rentals of Steven Soderbergh’s 2011 movie “Contagion” surged.

On top of the increased legal demand, piracy numbers were up as well. Instead of roughly 200 downloads per day via torrent sites, piracy numbers soon hit the tens of thousands.

Apparently this increase in demand hasn’t gone unnoticed to YTS, the most popular torrent site on the Internet which just recently settled two copyright lawsuits with movie studios. A day after we highlighted the download surge, YTS published two new high-quality copies of the film on the site.

The new uploads are 720p and 1080p BluRay rips, which are also spread by YTS across other torrent sites. While there is no mention of the reason to add the older movie, the connection to the Coronavirus outbreak is obvious.

That link is also quite apparent in the comments that are posted on the torrent site. “Is this what’s gonna happen?” one commenter writes, with another one adding that it’s a “great movie if you want to know about Coronavirus.”

As mentioned before, the events depicted in the movie “Contagion” have very little to do with the challenges facing the world today. Apart from both being related to a virus outbreak, perhaps.

What is striking, however, is that instead of the usual torrent site discussions about the quality of the pirated copy of the movie itself, the talk on YTS is mostly about the Coronavirus itself. Some commenters predict more doom and gloom, while others state that there’s little to worry about.

At TorrentFreak, we know more about copyright law than medical issues, so we will refrain from joining the discussion. That said, we believe that one comment is worth repeating. If only because it’s one of the oddest things we’ve read on a torrent site, yet quite accurate.

“Be smart, wash your hands frequently,” trapsterr writes.

At the time of writing YTS’s new “Contagion” rips are only a few hours old. We don’t have any updated download statistics yet, but it will likely break the daily record for this year soon enough.

Drom: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review.

This week we have three newcomers in our chart.

Jumanji: The Next Level is the most downloaded movie.

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 Web-DL/Webrip/HDRip/BDrip/DVDrip unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the articles of the recent weekly movie download charts.

This week’s most downloaded movies are:

Movie Rank	Rank last week	Movie name	IMDb Rating / Trailer
Most downloaded movies via torrents
1	(1)	Jumanji: The Next Level	6.9 / trailer
2	(…)	Spenser Confidential	6.3 / trailer
3	(2)	Frozen II	7.1 / trailer
4	(6)	Spies in Disguise	6.8 / trailer
5	(…)	Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn	6.5 / trailer
6	(3)	Knives Out	8.0 / trailer
7	(…)	Sonic The Hedgehog	6.8 / trailer
8	(7)	Ford v Ferrari	8.2 / trailer
9	(8)	Joker	8.8 / trailer
10	(4)	Charlie’s Angels	4.2 / trailer

Drom: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review.

While the vast majority of movies eventually appear online in pirated form, when they do so before their theatrical release dates there is always controversy.

These exclusive release windows are aggressively protected by the studios and when people breach them, by placing a cammed copy online, for example, a response can be expected. When leaked high-quality copies are made available, this can trigger the involvement of heavyweight law enforcement agencies.

Late Friday, the City of London Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) revealed that following a joint investigation with the then Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA, now MPA), a 31-year-old-man has now been jailed for his part in a pre-release movie releasing operation.

According to PIPCU, an investigation by the MPAA previously identified an individual using the alias Dark999 who was offering pre-release movies for sale. One of those movies was Fast & Furious 7 which, at the time, had not been released in cinemas. It was later discovered that Dark999 was Malik Luqman Farooq, a man from Halifax in the UK.

When officers from PIPCU searched Farooq’s home, they found a pre-release copy of Fast & Furious 7 and 15 other movies, all of which were yet to be released in cinemas. Action by the police ensured that Farooq was unable to leak Fast 7 online but after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud committed between September 2014 and April 2015, on Friday a judge at Southwark Crown Court sentenced him to 27 months in prison.

“Fast & Furious 7 was the second highest grossing movie in 2015,” said Detective Constable Abdun Noor at PIPCU following the sentencing.

“Industry estimates show the potential loss suffered, had the film been released before the official cinema date, would have been substantial. Our investigation ensured Farooq was arrested before he was able to release this particular film to the public.

“Digital piracy causes significant damage to the companies involved in producing films, not only in terms of profits, but also in terms of putting jobs at risk,” he continued.

“Anyone who is thinking of committing digital piracy, like Farooq, should see this case as a warning. Piracy is not a victimless crime and we will ensure these criminals are brought to justice.”

Little has been heard about this specific investigation until now. Police issued a statement in April 2015 indicating that they’d arrested a then 26-year-old at his workplace in Leeds in connection with the leaking of high-quality movies. Farooq was not named at the time but given that a search also took place at the suspect’s home in Halifax and many other details match, it’s now clear this was Farooq.

At the time the arrest was welcomed by Sylvester Stallone, who believed that police had detained one of the individuals responsible for leaking the movie Expendables 3 in 2014. Whether that movie was considered as part of the case against Farooq in the UK is unclear but Farooq’s troubles may not be over yet.

In December 2018, a federal grand jury in California indicted five men for allegedly offering pre-release copies of hundreds of movies and TV shows via the Internet. Farooq is listed as one of the suspects.

According to the Department of Justice, he allegedly sold access to more than a dozen “stolen pre-release or contemporaneous-release films” over a period of two years. He is alleged to have used online aliases including Dark999, the name also mentioned by PIPCU.

Four other men – Aditya Raj and Jitesh Jadhav, both assumed residents of India, Sam Nhance, believed to live in Dubai, and Ghobhirajah Selvarajah of Malaysia – are listed in the indictment, together charged with offenses including conspiracy to commit computer fraud, unauthorized access to a computer, aggravated identity theft, and copyright infringement.

According to the indictment, the group began offending prior to May 5, 2013 and continued to May 20, 2015.

The Department of Justice claims that Farooq, Raj, Nhance, and Selvarajah rented servers from companies including OVH which were used to store pirated copies of movies that had been illegally obtained from servers operated by movie, distribution, and other third-party companies. One of those movies was Expendables 3 which according to the indictment was sold by Farooq to an undercover MPAA investigator.

The case in the United States is being investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations with assistance from PIPCU in the UK. French and Canadian authorities are reported to have cooperated in obtaining evidence stored abroad.

Drom: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review.

During the past weekend many people have been unable to access The Pirate Bay and, at the time of writing, the site’s main domain remains inaccessible.

For most people, the site currently displays a Cloudflare error message across the entire site, with the CDN provider mentioning that the “connection timed out.”

This error suggests that there’s a problem on TPB’s end which is preventing the CDN provider from connecting to the site’s server.

No further details are available to us and there is no known ETA for the site’s full return. Judging from past experience, however, it’s likely a technical issue that has to be addressed. There are no known issues with Cloudflare or the domain name itself.

TorrentFreak hasn’t heard anything from the TPB team but these type of outages are not unusual. The Pirate Bay has suffered many of these outages in the past and the popular torrent site usually returns after a few hours, or days.

While the notorious torrent site remains inaccessible through the regular route, many proxy sites are still online. TPB is also still available via its new .onion address on the Tor network, accessible using the popular Tor Browser, for example.

Both the Tor domain and the proxies still feature fresh content. This means that user uploads and the upload bots are still operational as well.

In the past, the official Pirate Bay forums could point people to the latest status of the site. However, it appears that this feature is also suffering some technical issues as it reports everything to be down.

As always, the best remedy for hardcore Pirate Bay users is patience. But that should be a given by now.

Drom: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, torrent sites and more. We also have an annual VPN review.