It’s often said that the peer-to-peer file-sharing boom of the early 2000s was fueled by the entertainment industries’ failure to offer their content in the digital domain. It took years for them to respond but content is now more widely available online than any time in history.

Of course, in the background there are still millions of people who prefer to get their content fix for free. The lure of BitTorrent and unauthorized online streaming platforms remains strong but there is a noticeable trend of people wanting their content delivered to a TV instead of a computer screen.

With that in mind, it’s no wonder that the rise of Kodi has been so dramatic. The legal media player augmented with a wide range of unauthorized third-party plugins is a pirate’s dream, providing huge volumes of premium content at zero cost. The system does have its drawbacks, however.

Depending on the content, at times these setups can be unreliable, particularly when it comes to offering live sports. Streams are often low quality, if they stay online at all, a frustration to anyone trying to enjoy a real-time event.

One solution to this problem is to buy a $100 package from an official TV provider. Another is to pay a few dollars, euros, or pounds a month to an illegal IPTV supplier, who will provide thousands of often HD quality channels and VOD, with much greater reliability and accessibility than anything available for free.

When monitoring various anti-piracy companies, it’s clear that IPTV is a growing concern. Companies like Premier League partners Irdeto are clearly involved in tackling the issue and now networking company Cisco has shown its hand.

Cisco says it has spent years monitoring all kinds of piracy but its research into illicit IPTV suggests momentum in the area. Describing the Internet as a “great equalizer”, it says that some services could be “run by a teenager on a home PC” while others have companies and racks of servers behind them. Despite the apparent gray area, the big ones do stand out, however.

Cisco homes in on one particular supplier called RapidIPTV. According to its own data the company has 170,000 subscribers. Although market prices vary depending on package size and whether a subscription is bought through a reseller, each could be worth around $10 to $15 per month. Clearly there are significant sums of money involved, even for new entrants to the market.

“Servers which have only been recently launched can be expected to have hundreds of subscribers. Well-established servers might have 5,000-10,000 subscribers,” Cisco says.

The company says it spends time scouring online forums, the main marketplaces where IPTV packages are made available. One of the most active forums has 285 IPTV servers on offer.

“Conservatively, it’s fair to assess that for these 285 servers, there’s an average of 1,000 viewers per server in this highly competitive environment,” Cisco says.

“When we extrapolate from the forum described above, we can conclude that this single forum can easily reach 285,000 viewers. An average forum has offerings of hundreds of servers and each one has thousands of customers.

“So, with hundreds of popular forums worldwide and thousands of customers per site, the global scale of the problem is clearly visible to those of us visiting the forums and maintaining statistics.”

While Cisco doesn’t name the forum in question, the site has been operating openly for many years, without obvious signs of legal trouble. The same cannot be said about people who actually provide the services, however.

As highlighted by various raids in the UK, Spain, Bulgaria and elsewhere, the authorities are certainly very aware of the problem. These raids won’t be the last either, something that may put pressure on supply.

“I expect our prices to go up during the next few months,” one supplier told TF on condition of anonymity. “We all know that IPTV is in the crosshairs so suppliers who can’t stand the heat will get out. That might cause capacity problems but you know, it’s a moth to a flame. Others will setup, there’s money on offer. We’ll see.”

The rise of IPTV is certainly interesting from a piracy perspective, since it appears to offer a stepping stone for those currently disappointed by free web streaming but can’t or won’t pay the relatively large sums demanded by broadcasters.

Also of interest is whether companies such as the newly aggressive Netflix will begin to see IPTV services that come bundled with VOD packages as serious competitors. After all, for around the same price as Netflix, it’s possible to get a premium IPTV service with thousands of movies on demand.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Despite the widespread availability of legal streaming services, piracy remains rampant among millennials in North America.

This is one of the main conclusions of a new survey conducted by Launchleap. The data come from a survey among millennials between 18 and 35, and zooms in on pirate streaming preferences in this age group.

The results show that more than half of the respondents, a whopping 53%, admit to having used illegal services to stream movies or TV-shows over the past month. Legal streaming services remain on top with 70%, but interest in more traditional platforms such as TV, DVDs or Blu-Ray is clearly lagging behind.

The respondents don’t appear to be particularly bothered by their habit. Only 7% of the people questioned say they feel guilty when they watch a pirated movie, the remaining 93% experience no guilt.

Interestingly, streaming is seen as “less wrong” than downloading. While one-third sees both as equally wrong, 61% think that streaming is not as problematic as downloading.

The survey makes it clear that millennials use legal and pirate streaming services in tandem. Nearly half of the people who pay for a legal platform like Netflix also use pirate services on occasion.

When they want to watch a movie, their first instinct is to go to Netflix, to see if its available there. If that’s not the case, many use an illegal offering to get their fix.

The dominance of Netflix appears to be an driving factor here. In many cases, titles are legally available elsewhere, but millennials don’t seem to look much further than Netflix when it comes to legal content.

Finally, while pirate streaming services are taking over from torrents, the latter is still most often mentioned as the platform that got millennials introduced to piracy. However, this trend is likely to change when the new generation grows up.

Regarding motivation, the study finally shows that money remains an important factor in the decision to pirate, and is even more important than availability for most.

All in all the findings suggest that there’s still a long way to go before piracy becomes a non-issue, even in North America where legal platforms are readily available. And with the growth of easy to use pirate streaming services, this challenge isn’t getting easier anytime soon.

—

LaunchLeap’s full survey results are available here (pdf).

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

With millions of visitors per month, Uploaded is one of the largest file-hosting services on the Internet.

Like many of its ‘cloud-hosting’ competitors, the service is also used to share copyright-infringing material, which is a thorn in the side of various copyright holder groups.

This has already led to legal trouble for Uploaded’s parent company Cyando AG, which is currently involved in a legal battle with copyright holders in Germany.

The rightsholders believe that Uploaded is not doing enough to prevent repeat infringements and argue that the company should therefore be held liable for the infringing actions of its users.

While Uploaded hasn’t commented on the accusations out of court, recent developments show that something has definitely changed behind the scenes.

This week, Uploaded terminated the accounts of a large group of users who presumably used the site to share infringing material. The German news outlet Tarnkappe suggests that this is likely a direct response to the legal proceedings.

On several forums, including WJunction, users are reporting that their accounts have been permanently suspended by the file-hosting service.

“Due to the high frequency of reported copyright notifications and evaluation of our compliance department, we regret to inform you that – according to our Terms and Conditions – your account with ID ***, was deactivated,” the message sent by uploaded reads.

Those who login to their account will see a similar notice, confirming that their account has been suspended. “This account has been permanently suspended due to violations of the Terms and Conditions,” it reads.

Suspended…

While Uploaded has terminated accounts for similar reasons in the past, the number of complaints this week is unusual. Some even suggest that the site may not be around for much longer.

“So all our accounts are banned on the same day? I think very soon they will close the site!” one uploader wrote.

For now there is no indication that Uploaded is shutting down anytime soon. However, the recent terminations suggest that the site is getting tougher on users whose files are frequently flagged by rightholders.

The suspensions will mostly impact people who upload and share many pirated files on the site, often for profit. This is also the group of users copyright holders are most concerned about.

Uploaded’s actions are reminiscent of Rapidshare, which also took measures to ban frequent copyright infringers from its service. The company adopted one of the most restrictive sharing policies, but had to shut down after a while, as the company became less profitable.

TorrentFreak reached out to Uploaded to find out more about the apparent suspension spree, but we have yet to hear back from the company. The affected users, meanwhile, are looking for alternatives to share their files.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

For so many years, citizens have believed that what they do online is largely a private matter. Some continue to labor under the misconception that online events are somewhat transient but in many respects the Internet is becoming the network that never forgets.

In March 2015, Australia’s parliament passed legislation which requires all Internet service providers and telecoms companies to store their customers’ metadata. Despite cries from the public, the law swept into the books largely unhindered.

The Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2015 (pdf) covers large swathes of data. When a subscriber uses the Internet, for example, telcos are required to log their account name, date, time and connection duration against the service they access.

Companies are also required to log location data, including where any communications begin and where they terminate. Fixed line, WiFi, and cell phone connections are all covered by the legislation, which scoops up data on everything from social networking activity to visits to file-sharing sites.

Considering the scale of the project, ISPs and other telcos were given a year to have systems installed to handle the huge quantities of data involved in spying on millions of Australians. That deadline ran out today, meaning that for the man in the street, online privacy is now a thing of the past. Or is it?

Australian privacy rights group Digital Rights Watch (DRW) think they can make a difference. A few hours ago they urged citizens to fight back against mass surveillance, declaring today, April 13, “National Get a VPN Day.”

“It’s important that we mark this date – and pause to remember that a detailed picture of the private lives of Australian citizens is being collected by telecommunication companies on behalf of the Government. Many interactions we have in the digital world are being collected and stored by our communications providers, all without adequate safeguards” says Digital Rights Watch Chair Tim Singleton Norton.

DRW notes that the growing uptake of VPN services among Australians is a sign that the public doesn’t appreciate being spied on. While that’s almost certainly the case, Aussies have a long history of VPN use for other purposes too.

For years, when Netflix wasn’t available locally, Australians bought the service from overseas territories, such as the United States. Then, when Netflix finally landed on local shores, people used VPNs to access the better content selections available on Netflix in other countries.

Then last year, following massive pressure from copyright holders, VPN services received yet another boost when the Federal Court handed down instructions for ISPs to block The Pirate Bay and several other pirate sites.

So, along with fighting geo-restriction and web blockades, ISP surveillance is now giving Aussies yet another reason to pick up a VPN, if they don’t have one already.

“That’s why we’ve declared today as a national day of action – we’re calling upon Australian citizens to educate themselves about the scale of this surveillance and take precautions accordingly,” DRW says.

“If the government wants to surveil its citizens, then we’ll do everything in our power to equip people to circumvent that surveillance. If it takes every Australian having to run their digital lives through a VPN for the government to recognise that, then so be it.”

In addition to launching a Twitter campaign (#GetaVPN), DRW has an advice page with links to sites and resources offering information on VPNs and their use. TF’s own VPN anonymity guide is featured along with other good resources.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Since their very inception, satellite and cable TV systems have been vulnerable to those who enjoy watching content but prefer not to pay.

Many ‘solutions’ have been developed to offer consumers the chance to watch premium content for free, or close to it, via the use of modified receivers, replacement or hacked smart cards, or more recently so-called ‘card sharing‘ arrangements.

In response, so-called conditional access companies have developed advanced systems to ensure that viewers are also subscribers. One of the more successful is Nagravision (NAGRA), a system that is deployed in set-top boxes around the world.

But while NAGRA in this particular form can go some way towards protecting content delivered through proprietary devices, it can be bypassed by content delivered over the Internet, such as via streaming sites, augmented Kodi setups, and illegal IPTV services.

To that end, NAGRA and the International Broadcaster Coalition Against Piracy (IBCAP) have announced an expanded agreement “to bring a new generation of anti-piracy technology and services” to broadcasters and distributors of international and multicultural content.

“Developing automated, state-of-the-art tools to detect unauthorized streaming – especially on increasingly popular IPTV set-top boxes and Kodi add-ons – helps ensure we can take swift and decisive action against pirates and maintain the value of the services offered to IBCAP members,” says Frederic Guitard, Vice President Media Security Services for NAGRA.

IBCAP and NAGRA have been working together since 2014, and the expansion of the agreement was welcomed by Chris Kuelling, Executive Director of IBCAP.

“The expansion of our agreement with NAGRA will help us leverage the latest technologies and expertise in content protection and anti-piracy with the aim of putting pirates out of business and replacing them with legitimate providers,” he said.

NAGRA says it will establish a lab to monitor and detect unauthorized use of content via set-top boxes, websites and other streaming platforms. The company says it will target both linear feeds and VOD content, and take action to have that content removed.

It will also take steps to identify people selling pirate services (such as Kodi boxes augmented with infringing addons and unlicensed IPTV resellers) with an aim to either educate or gather evidence for future lawsuits.

The latter option could prove quite expensive. According to figures provided by IBCAP, since 2014 the group has obtained judgments or settlements against IPTV box manufacturers, providers, and retailers in excess of $100 million.

“ISP’s, CDN’s, and domain name providers have complied with court orders and unauthorized IPTV services have been disrupted or shut down entirely,” the group says.

Crackdowns on IPTV and Kodi box suppliers are becoming increasingly commonplace, particularly in Europe. Action by the Premier League and Spanish authorities shut down a large IPTV supplier last year and fresh action against a pair of IPTV affiliated ISPs was announced just last week by Europol.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.