The joint press release issued Monday by the Premier League and Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) was unusual right from the start.

Published early on Monday, even the timing was a break from the norm, but the content was even more surprising. Following criminal referrals by the Premier League and ACE, an operator of BestBuyIPTV – a platform that has appeared on the USTR’s Notorious Markets report for the past five years – had been convicted at the People’s Court of Hanoi.

For a country where criminal referrals have traditionally disappeared into the ether, that could be a very big deal.

Sentencing Details Are Somewhat Puzzling

The press release clearly identifies Le Hai Nam as “the operator” of BestBuyIPTV. He entered a guilty plea and was sentenced to 30 months in prison and ordered to pay the equivalent of $4,000. Whether that was a straightforward fine or something else isn’t clear, but more than $24,000 in illegal profits were identified, confiscated, and then seized by the state, while $12,000 in restitution was paid according to the indictment.

Having learned more about the case and its challenges since Monday, the conviction seems to represent a minor miracle in itself. In isolation, however, there’s an irreconcilable gap between the scale of the infringing and the punishment handed down.

For reasons that aren’t addressed, the court suspended the entire sentence, i.e no prison time at all. Assuming the restitution was split 50/50, that’s $6,000 each for the Premier League and ACE, while $24,000 – the bulk of funds – simply evaporated into the public purse. It’s a baffling situation, but clearly the conviction is the main prize here; it could be priceless.

Legal Process Took Four Years

Information made available to TorrentFreak suggests that the Premier League filed a complaint with authorities in June or July 2020, requesting an investigation and criminal prosecution of not one, but two Vietnamese nationals, one of which was Le Hai Nam.

The other, whose name we’ll refrain from revealing here, was considered the operator of BestBuyIPTV while Nam appears to have controlled the restreaming side of the business. Communications with customers show involvement in both reselling and direct sales, however.

Estimates of how much BestBuyIPTV was making overall were not made available to us, but a third party estimate provides some basis to throw some figures into the air to compare with the $14,000 paid in restitution.

In common with similar services who use subscriber numbers as part of their marketing, BestBuyIPTV’s homepage boasted 900,000 subscribers, between 10,000 and 12,000 resellers, and around 2,000 restreaming affiliates. If we assume these figures are highly inflated and then broadly avoid counting revenues twice, a conservative estimate would run to a seven-figure sum, and quite possibly eight.

The other remarkable aspect to this case can be viewed from two different directions. Either there was a complete lack of awareness on the security front, or maybe none of those involved actually cared. Given the technical skills on display concerning the service itself, the former seems to be out of the question. That leaves the latter, and probably one of the easier identifications for the Premier League in recent years.

Of course, that’s just a small part of the puzzle; gathering evidence to support convictions is painstaking work and more may be needed to bring this particular battle to an end.

Official Admits Manga Piracy Problem

As regularly reported over the past few years, Vietnam is home to some of the world’s largest pirate sites. In the United States, with site-blocking legislation back on the political agenda, the spotlight is on FMovies , one of the world’s leading movie and TV show streaming sites.

For some time, however, copyright holders in Japan have been reporting several other Vietnam-based or Vietnam-operated platforms responsible for staggering levels of piracy. They specialize in Japanese comics, known as manga, and local cartoons, better known as anime.

After recently renewing an anti-piracy partnership with Hollywood, publishers and anti-piracy group CODA are independently working flat out to solve what at times has looked like an unsolvable problem. However, unusual comments published in local media may suggest some light on the horizon.

Hundreds of Millions of Dollars

Pham Hoang Hai is the director of the Radio, Television and Electronic Information Testing Center, which operates within the Department of Broadcasting and Electronic Information under the Ministry of Information and Communications.

In comments published recently in local media, Hai said that around 100 websites are known to offer football matches illegally in Vietnam, together responsible for around 1.5 billion views in the 2022/2023 season. He also commented on sites dealing in other content, around 200 generating around 120 million views. And then something else, which as far as we know is the first public comment that acknowledges the scale of manga piracy traceable to Vietnam.

“Recently, we discovered a number of websites with servers located abroad that violate comic book copyrights,” Hai said .

“There have been a number of Japanese organizations working with the Ministry of Information and Communications, reporting comic book violations. Wars in cyberspace have caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to copyright owners.”

In isolation, that may not sound like a particularly important comment and with no context, a suspended sentence and measly restitution could easily be dismissed on the same grounds. Only time will tell whether these seeds will grow into something more substantial but in Vietnam, where signs of progress are extremely rare, any achievement in the right direction holds significant value.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

In recent years, copyright holders have paid close attention to a growing number of large piracy services with connections to Vietnam.

Popular brands including Fmovies, AniWave, 123movies, BestBuyIPTV, 2embed, and Y2mate are all linked to the Asian country, which was recently branded a ‘piracy haven’ .

BestBuyIPTV Conviction

To curb this trend, western rightsholders have been working with local authorities to bring local investigations and enforcement efforts up to par. While this process takes time, there was a breakthrough last week.

The People’s Court of Hanoi handed BestBuyIPTV operator Le Hai Nam a 30-month suspended prison sentence. In addition, the man must pay the equivalent of $4,000 in local currency, after having paid $12,000 in restitution previously.

BestBuyIPTV is known as one of the most popular IPTV services. The subscription platform has been repeatedly called out as a notorious piracy market by the US Trade Representative, as recently as this year.

The defendant reportedly pleaded guilty to his role in the BestBuyIPTV operation. While a copy of the verdict is not immediately available, a release shared by rightsholders attributed the following quote to the Hanoi court Judge.

“The defendant has violated the provisions of the law which protect the copyright and related rights of the Motion Picture Association’s members and the English Premier League,” Judge Le Hai Yen said.

According to the Judge, these types of crimes are a danger to society and should be strictly enforced and prosecuted, to send a deterrent to other operators of pirate sites and services.

First Ever Online Piracy Conviction

The prosecution follows referrals from the Premier League and Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment ( ACE ), who note that this is the first-ever online piracy conviction in Vietnam.

The rightsholders see last week’s conviction as an important milestone that will set a precedent in Vietnam. It’s a clear signal that online pirate sites and services won’t be tolerated, they say.

“This result should serve as a stark warning to anyone involved in the illegal supply of Premier League streams in Vietnam. It is the result of a strong partnership between the Vietnamese authorities and local law enforcement, ACE and the Premier League,” says Kevin Plumb, Premier League’s General Counsel.

Karyn Temple, MPA’s Senior Executive Vice President, shares this view and hopes that the Vietnamese authorities will move onto other high profile targets next, which could include the popular streaming site Fmovies .

“We eagerly await similar action from Vietnamese law enforcement on other longstanding priority targets engaged in digital piracy on a global scale,” Temple notes, without explicitly naming any.

BestBuyIPTV is Online?

Interestingly, the BestBuyIPTV threat may not be completely dealt with yet. MPA previously called out the ‘Bestbuyiptv.biz’ domain in relation to the popular service, which remains online today.

“BestBuyIPTV is extremely popular in the United States & Europe,” MPA wrote at the time, adding that “the operators are located in Vietnam.”

It’s possible that other operators of the service managed the service online, which would put the conviction’s deterrent effect in doubt. Or was the sentenced operator perhaps linked to another BestBuyIPTV service?

We have asked the MPA for clarification, as its press release makes no mention of this, and will update the article when an official response comes in.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

In a world where users can have their own ChatGPT-like AI instances up and running on their own PCs, in just a handful of minutes, for zero spend and completely legally, the app experience on smart TVs rarely fails to disappoint.

Yet when smart TV users somehow manage to clunk their way through, say, LG’s menus, and then avoid the avalanche of distractions that exist purely to break their will, only disappointment lies ahead for the IPTV-curious.

If, against all odds, they find an app that resembles the thing they actually searched for, the high probability of being presented with the app “Smart IPTV” is something thousands before them will attest to.

More Disappointment

It’s not that Smart IPTV is a poor product, it’s not. The fact that most of the time people have to pay to use it isn’t to blame either. The problem is the expectations of those who bought the software in the belief it contains illegal streams. It doesn’t, and that can be very disappointing.

Most likely due to the number of complaints from misinformed buyers, listings for the app on the LG, Samsung, and Google Play stores are now very clear: Smart IPTV does not provide access to playlists or streams, so don’t even ask.

LG TV App Store

The reason for the confusion among prospective buyers isn’t immediately clear. Smart IPTV seems like it’s been around forever and at no point has anything stuck out as being especially misleading or offering any suggestion that more might be on offer.

Yet now, even those who purchased Smart IPTV in full knowledge it offered no content, are being disappointed too.

Smart IPTV Website Blocked in Spain

During the past few days, reports have surfaced indicating that the official website of Smart IPTV has been blocked by Spanish ISPs. Visitors to siptv.app are instead redirected to an alternative page displaying the following text:

“Contenido bloqueado por requerimiento de la Autoridad Competente, comunicado a esta Operadora”

When translated to English, the message reads: “Content blocked at the request of the Competent Authority, communicated to this Operator.

In common with many countries around the world, particularly in Europe, Spain has a site-blocking system that restricts access to sites and services deemed to infringe copyright. Some prominent cases receive publicity as they travel through the legal system, most notably when top tier football league LaLiga and its broadcasting partners obtain injunctions to block pirate IPTV services.

While Spain does put together a report every few months to show the extent of blocking in the country, its usefulness is limited to a review of blocking already in place. As a tool to explain what is happening now, much less why a site or service was deemed infringing, the report is effectively useless.

As a result, which company declared the Smart IPTV app as copyright-infringing is unknown. What we can do, if only as a thought exercise, is use existing information to establish the most likely candidate based on motivation and past statements.

LaLiga – Who Else?

When it comes to blocking measures, especially those related to pirate IPTV, no rightsholders anywhere in the world are more aggressive than those behind the most popular football leagues.

The Premier League (England), Serie A (Italy) and LaLiga (Spain) are widely considered to be the leading proponents of blocking measures. Through a basic process of elimination, LaLiga is the only entity from the three likely to have targeted Smart IPTV in Spain, but there are more compelling reasons than simply being an aggressive blocking proponent in a specific geographic area.

In a 2022 submission to a then-upcoming edition of the European Commission’s Counterfeiting and Piracy Watchlist, LaLiga submitted a list of apps that, from a technical perspective, could play illegal streams of LaLiga football matches.

More accurately, the majority simply allowed the users of the apps to play content referenced in .M3U playlists that were not supplied with the apps themselves .

Terrifying Text Files From The 90s

Being able to play an .M3U playlist is a basic functionality offered by media players including VLC. For those sporting gray hair today, the same ‘technology’ was available in Winamp. Those who remember .M3U playlists starting to gain popularity in 1996 will be able to explain this incredible technology in a few words; it’s a text file containing locations where information can be found, on a hard drive (c:\playlists) or a network, mostly using a domain or IP address.

Instead of accusing the apps of infringement directly, LaLiga used broad strokes to paint a picture of infringing capability.

“It is important to note that all of these player applications allow the consumption of an innumerable amount of audiovisual contents such as sports, movies, series TV channels, etc. In other words, this problem affects the entire audiovisual and entertainment industry in general,” LaLiga added, carefully choosing its words.

As we highlighted at the time, LaLiga’s careful words were supported by carefully presented evidence, which in one case took an IPTV developer’s documentation and used it against them, after cropping the screenshot to disappear a line that began: “This app doesn’t contain any built-in channels…”

Again, we must reiterate that Spain’s blocking mechanism fails to offer enough transparency to identify who is behind the blocking of Smart IPTV. This means that we cannot say with any certainty that LaLiga is actually behind the blockade, but we can offer a generalized conclusion.

Any system that allows participants to mark their own homework in relative secrecy, can never be fit for purpose when other people’s basic rights begin to suffer. The fundamental right to conduct a legal business throughout the Union, for example.

Blocking Began Around April 12

To find out more about recent events, TorrentFreak spoke with the owner of Smart IPTV.

“The website domains siptv.app and siptv.eu have been blocked at some of Spain’s ISPs since approx. 04/12. Some ISPs still allow access to the website,” he explains.

“I have not received any correspondence from the officials or ISPs, I only started receiving messages from angry users from Spain that they couldn’t access the website. I conversed with a couple of them and it turned out the blocking is on the domain level, where ISPs are redirecting using 451 HTTP error, which also threw SSL certificate errors for those using HTTPS.”

With the blocking clearly causing access and security issues, Smart IPTV’s owner says that blocking can be avoided using a VPN but for him, it’s “not a very good solution.”

Instead, he’s having to make modifications to his apps to mitigate the problems.

“Since the App is operating on the same domains [as the website], the only way to work around this is to release updates of the appropriate Apps on devices, which I have already submitted and waiting for approval from Apps Stores (this can take a while),” he explains.

“A manual Android install is already operating normally, confirmed by Spanish users. The problem is that older devices that won’t get the app update (I am talking 10-year-old devices) will not be able to benefit from the app any longer.”

Of course, it’s likely that angry users who don’t understand the situation will blame the developer, then expect a new version of the app for free. But, as the MPA highlighted recently as it prepares its own proposals for blocking in the United States, blocking never, ever goes wrong.

As everyone else knows, that’s absolutely true, except for when it does.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Way back in 2010, Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN embarked on a mission to have The Pirate Bay blocked in the Netherlands.

Ziggo, the country’s largest ISP, had been asked to implement a DNS and IP address blockade but when BREIN’s overtures were declined, legal action ensued.

Ziggo was subsequently joined by XS4ALL, a rival ISP which also opposed site-blocking measures. After The Court of The Hague decided that blocking all customers from accessing The Pirate Bay went too far, BREIN dug in for the long haul and prepared for a full trial.

In January 2012, BREIN emerged victorious . At the time, downloading copyrighted material was still considered legal in the Netherlands, but the uploads associated with BitTorrent were always illegal, tipping the case decisively in BREIN’s favor.

Years of appeals and intense legal action followed, including a trip to the Supreme Court and a referral to the EU Court of Justice. In 2017, after the CJEU effectively found The Pirate Bay itself illegal, the matter continued to be fought tooth and nail, sucking in other ISPs , KPN included.

This particular chapter was almost over, but another one had begun years earlier and was only just getting warmed up.

Pirate IPTV Takes the Netherlands By Storm

Tackling pirate IPTV services has been a BREIN priority for a number of years. Providers, sometimes extremely large ones , have fallen as part of BREIN’s investigations, but the anti-piracy group is just as much at home targeting sellers , resellers , and set-top box vendors. BREIN has tackled hundreds of these entities over the years , picking up landmark judgments on the way.

For ISPs like Ziggo and KPN, the existence of bandwidth-hungry pirate IPTV consumers might’ve once been good for business. Today, however, sales of broadband subscriptions constitute just part of their overall product range. In common with BREIN’s clients active in the movie and TV show production and distribution business, selling access to legal content represents an important revenue source for companies that today are much more than ‘just’ an ISP.

Increasing numbers of pirate IPTV users can be directly linked to fewer sales of legal TV packages, the ISPs argue. In an ideal world the ISPs should be selling these to the majority of their customers, but reports suggest that’s becoming increasingly difficult.

Interests of BREIN and ISPs Align

Reports vary but it’s believed that around 1.5 million Dutch households currently subscribe to a pirate IPTV service. With a total population edging towards 18 million, that’s a sizeable figure. It pushes the Netherlands close to the top of the most prolific pirate IPTV consumers list for the whole of the EU where there is no shortage of competition.

With the interests of BREIN and those of the ISPs suddenly aligned, it appears that all three are now speaking the same language. According to a report published at Ad.nl ( paywall ) , pressure on sales has led the previously warring factions to call on the state to take a stronger line against the runaway growth of illegal IPTV.

The Public Prosecution Service is seen as a potential ally but according to the report, the service has doubts about taking a tough approach. Larger pirate IPTV services are the usual targets when the state considers criminal prosecutions. Beyond that, it’s suggested that action against intermediaries or end users should be tackled by entities like BREIN, under civil, rather than criminal law.

Raising Awareness

Raising awareness among consumers is seen as an area that could yield results but as the figures show, awareness of what makes pirate IPTV services attractive to consumers is already widespread. Typically available for up to 90% cheaper than official services, pirate IPTV services deliver most content offered by dozens of individual legal services, bundled into a single subscription package with all content readily accessible from the same place.

Rightsholders’ definition of awareness focuses on the potential downsides; financing criminal organizations, fueling other types of crime, malware, and set-top boxes capable of stealing banking credentials, among other things. For some consumers this type of messaging may have the desired effect but in ‘underground’ circles, where the grapevine and shared experiences rule, none of these issues carry much weight. At least, not enough weight to tip the scales against savings of up to 150 euros per month.

Future Cooperation

That BREIN, Ziggo, and KPN now appear to agree on the need to tackle IPTV services is logical, if a little unexpected. BREIN’s activities that require the assistance of local ISPs rarely run smoothly. Ziggo, for example, refused to forward piracy warning notices to its customers, leading to yet another face-off in court, from which Ziggo came out on top .

That being said, BREIN will likely appreciate any alignment and, as the site-blocking ‘Covenant’ currently in place shows, cooperation isn’t impossible, or even out of the question. In all likelihood, it’s simply a matter of timing.

Image credits: (1 , 2)

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

For the best part of 15 years, maybe more, Sweden was rarely out of the piracy headlines. Kept busy by the endless antics of The Pirate Bay, there was always some type of chaos to contend with, and that kept everyone very busy.

With an entire generation exposed to piracy thanks to the most notorious pirates of them all, there was always a question mark over Sweden’s ability to turn its back on The Pirate Bay in favor of legitimate services. Spotify, another local phenomenon, played a key role when it specifically targeted pirates; its product is still vastly superior to any music-focused piracy service available anywhere.

While still not averse to dabbling around the main brace of The Pirate Bay, towards the middle of the last decade, Swedes were increasingly turning to an old pirate friend sporting a new coat of paint. Video streaming had been around for years but when packaged up as a consumer-like product, accessed via a living-room set-top box rather than a PC, Swedes had their collective heads turned. They weren’t alone.

Swedes and the New Piracy Boogeyman

Starting around 2016, give or take depending on region, pirate IPTV services exploded globally. Acting as a direct replacement, for some even an antidote to runaway expensive TV subscription packages, the IPTV boom most likely had entertainment companies reluctantly nostalgic for The Pirate Bay.

A study published by the EU Intellectual Property Office in November 2019 revealed ( pdf ) that Sweden and the Netherlands were the most prolific consumers of pirate IPTV services in the entire bloc, with 9% of each population already exposed.

At the same time, legal consumption was trending up but with an overall piracy rate of around 20%, rightsholders could still see potential profit slipping away.

Pressure Increases on Players in the Illicit Market

In common with its counterparts in Europe, Sweden had already been paying more attention to those involved in the supply and sale of pirate IPTV subscriptions. Most investigations fell to local anti-piracy group Rights Alliance which represents the interests of large local broadcasters and film companies, plus those of the majors in Hollywood.

In 2022, a then 23-year-old was criminally convicted and ordered to pay around $230,000 in damages to local rightsholders. Soon after a subscription reseller received a six-month sentence , a step up from the community sentences seen earlier. Other cases came and went, mostly ending in success for the plaintiffs.

Anticipation Following Lengthy Investigation

In 2019, the same year that Sweden and the Netherlands were dueling for top spot on the EU’s IPTV piracy list, Rights Alliance referred an IPTV piracy case to local police. The group believed the man was behind Dreamhost, one of the more popular pirate IPTV brands in Sweden and therefore a priority target.

Regardless of the target, no investigation of this type is ever straightforward. As Rights Alliance reported in 2023, the cross-border nature of the offending can require evidence to be obtained from overseas, meaning that cases can drag on for quite some time. In this case, already four years.

Nevertheless, Rights Alliance described the evidence as extensive. A resident of southern Sweden, the man was the alleged registrant of the service’s domain name. He moderated the service’s chats, for which the logs had been obtained, and he answered questions posed by customers.

On top of IP address tracking evidence and email address data, a financial investigation reportedly identified two bitcoin wallets linked to the suspect, and data revealing that almost SEK 2,000,000 was received in 2020 alone, roughly $189,000 at today’s rates. Police also found payments between the suspect’s accounts and an account linked to Dreamhost.

Sales to Friends and Family, Fear, Remote Control

Last September in advance of his trial, Rights Alliance revealed that under questioning, the man admitted doing some technical work for Dreamhost and selling subscriptions to family and friends. He also claimed that he didn’t know who was behind Dreamhost and at times, since he felt threatened, allowed his computer to be controlled remotely, by a person he couldn’t identify.

Whether the claims had any substance is unclear but the rightsholders behind the prosecution would be requesting serious compensation for damage caused by the service, Rights Alliance said.

Guilty Verdict

In an October 2023 announcement, Rights Alliance revealed that the man had been found guilty. The extensive evidence was noted once again and reference was made to the SEK 2,000,000 the man received in 2020. The sentence itself appeared to come as a disappointment, however.

“The penalty was determined to be a suspended sentence and 100 daily fines,” Rights Alliance reported, a reference to the Swedish system where fines are calculated based on a person’s daily income. The number of ‘day fines’ imposed is meant to mirror the amount lost had the convicted been imprisoned without earnings.

Noting that the man had avoided being sentenced under the much tougher regime now in place, Rights Alliance said little else.

Decision Went to Appeal

A Rights Alliance statement published Thursday summarizes a verdict also handed down yesterdayby the Patent and Market Appeal Court. Rights Alliance didn’t post a copy of the decision and the court is yet to make it public, but it seems likely that the rightsholders appealed against the relatively light sentence handed down last October.

The verdict as reported suggests that the conditional sentence and 100 day fines stands. However, the SEK 2,000,000 in damages payable to rightsholders is now being reported as SEK 1,700,000. A SEK 300,000 reduction transforms the $189,000 award to one just shy of $160,000.

“The verdict shows that it takes a long time from report to verdict, but that despite everything, it is not possible to avoid the long arm of the law,” Rights Alliance concludes.

When searching fruitlessly for a copy of the decision handed down Thursday, we stumbled across another case that appears to challenge the assertion that the long arm of the law is inevitable.

Details Matter

The case involves an appeal of a judgment handed down by the Patent and Market Court in June 2022 and a person named only as L.K., who was accused of copyright infringement in connection with the website swedeniptv.se.

“According to the indictment, L.K.’s involvement in the offense primarily consisted of paying for the domain and administering the website, charging customers, and marketing the website. Secondly, he is alleged to have promoted others’ illegal distribution of the films, which occurred via the website swedeniptv.se,” a decision by the court of appeal reads.

“The Patent and Market Court of Appeal assesses that it is already evident from L.K.’s own statements that he had the primary role concerning the website swedeniptv.se. However, his main objections to the indictment are that the films in question were not available via the website and that he acted as a so-called ‘gatekeeper’ for other individuals who remotely controlled his computers.”

It appears that when L.K. was on trial, the prosecutor (acting for movie company plaintiffs Swedish Film Industry, Nordisk Film, Disney, Universal, and Sony) alleged that the movies were made available to the public via the website swedeniptv.se. In reality, people purchased subscriptions from swedeniptv.se and then received a link via email which linked to servers in the Netherlands.

The court of appeal found that films being made available via an email link to a Dutch website was something “not apparent from the description of the act” provided by the prosecution. As a result it had not been shown beyond reasonable doubt that L.K. committed the act the prosecutor alleged.

The panel did not reach a unanimous decision. In light of the facts presented during case, including the defendant’s admissions, an objective view of the arguments of those who dissented reveals reasonable conclusions that could’ve prevailed anywhere else on a different day.

They appear to have been thwarted on a technicality, one that seems like it should’ve been completely avoidable

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

The global popularity of the English Premier League signals huge potential for growth, at least when local complications can be overcome.

The Premier League has a reputation for tackling challenges head on but, after breaking into the Russia market and signing a TV rights deal worth £43 million, a full-blown invasion of Ukraine was unlikely to have been part of the plan. The Premier League condemned the violence and announced it would donate £1m to the Disasters Emergency Committee to deliver humanitarian aid directly to those who needed it.

In any event, the deal with Match TV, a broadcaster owned by Gazprom Media, in turn owned by Gazprombank, had nowhere to go that didn’t risk a collision course with sanctions. A deal with over-the-top platform Okko Sport, owned by Rambler, in turn owned by state bank Sberbank, was over too.

The Game Goes On

When legal access to Premier League matches dried up, there would’ve been little panic among fans. While the piracy situation in Russia had noticeably improved during the previous decade, no content is immune to being cloned; it’s simply a question of choosing a new supplier and deciding whether content should be ridiculously cheap or completely free.

An intriguing interview published this week by local news outlet Vedomosti charts the resurgence of Sportscast, a group that began illegally streaming NBA in 2016 using its own Russian commentators but has since amassed a team of 50, covering Premier League, NHL, tennis, and Formula 1.

Sportscast operates its own website but also has a major presence on social networking platform VK. On VK Video, the group archives matches so that they are viewable on demand. The most recent video, last night’s 4-1 defeat of Aston Villa at the hands of Manchester City, currently has almost 49,000 replay views.

Anton Kuzmichev, head of Sportcast, told Vedomosti that he feels no guilt showing Premier League matches; as soon as the league returns to Russia, Sportcast will stop its broadcasts for legal reasons.

“I have a legal education, and I can say for sure that we are not violating any Russian laws,” Kuzmichev said.

The belief is that since the broadcasting deal between the Premier League and Match TV is not in effect, nobody has a license to show Premier League games in Russia, so in theory nobody can sue.

Matches from Spain’s LaLiga are not shown for the opposite reason; apparently happy to accumulate rubles, LaLiga’s deal with Okko remains in place, meaning that if the company files a complaint in Russia, pirates could find their websites blocked.

Pirating the Pirates

Behind the scenes of these pirate broadcasts, keeping costs under control is a key objective. Match streams are sourced from other pirates, with $3 sufficient to buy an IPTV package for a month with match commentary arriving in Portuguese (most likely sourced from Brazil), Polish, or Arabic ( usual sources ). As expected, streams can break up at times but judging purely on the replay videos uploaded as part of Sportcast’s VOD service, quality is very good indeed.

Commentators work from home using OBS Studio , adding their own graphics, suppressing the original commentary, before adding their own via a $50 mic. Through a donation model, can earn between $30 and $45 per match but some see the gig as a stepping stone to bigger things.

Ivan Kazakov, who works as a commentator on the ‘Goat Sport’ group on VK, says he took a three-month summer course in journalism and is now doing an internship with Match TV where he commentates on matches from Italy’s Serie A.

Business Matters

For the operator of SportsCast, generating revenue is a requirement to keep the project going. Gambling ads are not allowed on VK so the video player embedded in the SportsCast website is used to deliver gambling ads while Sports.ru provides sponsorship.

The overall audience is estimated at around 300,000 viewers, averaging between 30,000 and 40,000 per match, but nothing lasts forever. When serious competition returns to the market, offering football to the masses at a reasonable price people can actually afford, everything will come crashing down.

“As soon as [Premier League] returns to Russia, our market will collapse,” Kuzmichev concludes.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Operating a pirate IPTV service can be a dangerous endeavor, no matter where one’s located. In the United States, home to Hollywood and other major entertainment outfits, the risks are arguably even higher.

In the past, we have seen several pirate IPTV businesses being taken to court , with rightsholders almost always on the winning side. These cases can result in million-dollar damages awards or even multi-year prison sentences , if the feds get involved.

Despite this backdrop, some people are still willing to take a gamble. According to a new lawsuit filed at a Texan federal court, Dallas resident William Freemon and his company Freemon Technology Industries, are a prime example.

Hollywood Lawsuit Against IPTV Operator

The complaint, filed by Hollywood majors including Disney and Warner Bros, as well as streaming giants Amazon and Netflix, accuses the defendant of widespread copyright infringement.

This alleged illegal activity involves selling presumed pirate IPTV subscriptions through domains such as instantiptv.net, streamingtvnow.com,streamingtvnow.net, tvnitro.net, cashappiptv.com, livetvresellers.com, stncloud.ltd, and stnlive.ltd, some of which remain online today.

“Freemon operates an extensive and commercially scaled network of illegal streaming services that offers unauthorized access to live channels and video-on-demand streams of Plaintiffs’ copyrighted movies and TV shows,” the complaint reads.

The defendant is a familiar name for the entertainment companies, who have followed his actions for years.

“Freemon has a long history of brazen disregard for copyright laws, and his early foray into internet piracy is the first link in the chain leading to his current web of illegal services,” they write.

“Beginning in 2016 and continuing through 2019, Freemon sold illegally modified Fire TV Stick devices. These devices connect to a regular TV and allow customers to access unauthorized content.”

Firesticks Lead to IPTV

The ‘loaded’ Firestick business was promoted on X and Facebook and the complaint includes two dated screenshots from this activity. At the time, these devices were sold through firesticksloaded.com and firesticksloaded.biz, and Freemon was listed as the registrant for the latter domain.

These sites are long gone now but they offered a fruitful lead to other, potentially illegal, activities. The Firesticks domains were hosted on the same IP address as several other domain names and ultimately formed a trail to the controversial IPTV operations.

Those IPTV services include ‘Streaming TV Now’, ‘Instant IPTV’, ‘Cash App IPTV’, and ‘TV Nitro’. Some of these were subsequently advertised through the YouTube channel @williamfreemon3378, which the plaintiffs believe belongs to the defendant.

The YouTube videos are no longer online today as they were taken down following complaints from rightsholders, but they’re used as additional evidence to support the current lawsuit.

“These YouTube videos —and their subsequent removal— nonetheless provide further evidence that Freemon is behind this web of services and that he knows he is committing infringement,” the complaint reads.

TV Nitro and Other IPTV Endeavors

According to the plaintiffs, ‘TV Nitro’ was the first IPTV service that Freemon was linked to. This service originally operated as ‘Nitro TV’ between 2019 and 2021. After subsequently going offline for two years, it recently reappeared.

‘Streaming TV Now’ is the most popular IPTV service according to the complaint. It first appeared online in 2020 and offers access to 11,000 live channels, as well as on-demand access to over 27,000 movies and 9,000 TV series.

“Freemon offers customer subscription packages for Streaming TV Now at prices ranging from $20 per month to $150 per year—depending on the package and billing cycle selected. The money goes to Freemon.”

In addition to offering IPTV packages to the public, the defendant is also accused of recruiting resellers through livetvresellers.com, presumably to expand the reach of his IPTV business.

Warning Leads to Lawsuit

Before taking the matter to court, Amazon, Netflix, and the Hollywood studios sent a letter to the defendant, asking him to stop all infringing activities. However, that didn’t yield the desired response. Instead of taking action, the defendant said he no longer controls the domains.

“Freemon was not cooperative. He did not take down the Infringing Services and instead offered unsubstantiated claims that he transferred the associated domains,” the complaint reads.

“Plaintiffs spent months negotiating with Freemon. Based on the lack of substantial change to the Infringing Services in the intervening times, including that the respective main domains are still hosted with the same hosting provider [Amarutu], Freemon is likely still controlling the Infringing Domains.

“Freemon’s evasiveness is particularly concerning in light of his long history of willful infringement,” the plaintiffs add.

The rightsholders allege that the defendant is liable for copyright infringement, either directly or indirectly. They therefore request a jury trial and appropriate damages.

With 125 movies and TV shows listed in the complaint, maximum statutory damages can be as high as $18 million. The figure could increase further still, as the plaintiffs reserve the right to add more titles.

For now, however, the priority seems to be to end the infringing activity. To that end, Amazon and the other plaintiffs request injunctive relief, including the handover of all infringing domain names and the destruction of all ‘pirate’ hardware.

—

A copy of the complaint, filed yesterday at the District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas, is available here (pdf)

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Being able to receive and impart knowledge and ideas with other people is one of the most important things any human will ever do.

The information shared or received won’t always be accurate, even if we believe it is. It might not be accurate even if it appears in several widely read online newspapers. All anyone really expects is a tiny effort to ensure that they aren’t being fed fabricated nonsense made up on the spot.

Apparently, even that’s too much to ask; illegal streaming detector cars , really?

Something Something PIRACY SHIELD WARNING

The image below shows how Google responds to a search for a very specific term. The search term ‘piracy shield’ relates to an anti-piracy system that enjoyed its full launch in Italy on February 2, 2024. We’ve written about Piracy Shield and the legislation supporting it on dozens of occasions, including numerous times in the last few weeks.

Of the available ‘Top Stories’ space, we get a quarter while the remaining 75% is allocated to three extremely popular, UK-focused publications, all of which expend considerable resources on SEO and here, tell exactly the same ‘story’.

While TorrentFreak’s regular readers will already know what Piracy Shield is , who built it and why , exactly how it functions from a technical perspective, and all of its ‘secret’ targets thus far , it’s likely that readers of the publications above were less aware of it.

After reading the articles, not much would’ve improved.

Stand By Brits, This Will End Illegal Streaming, FOREVER

The Piracy Shield system was donated by Italian football league Serie A to Italian telecoms regulator, AGCOM. The technical section of an Italian law firm worked on development, the system was accredited for use in Italy under Italian law, and is currently hard at work trying to block access to Italian content, in Italy.

That obviously leads seamlessly and not at all unnaturally to headlines like these.

Given these end-of-days headlines, some may have been comforted that the doom portrayed at the start of the articles had completely disappeared by the end.

From “the crackdown may stop games being streamed illegally for good” at the start, to variations on “there are no plans for a similar procedure to be adopted in the UK” at the end. That’s either the most miraculous recovery seen recently, or the textbook definition of clickbait.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter, because it’s still not entirely true. Or indeed true at all.

Anyone Remember The Premier League?

The Piracy Shield system in Italy exists in the main to block pirate sports streams, delivered by premium IPTV piracy platforms or those accessed via web-based streaming portals. To ensure the legality of blocking under Italian law, so-called ‘precautionary measures’ with the ability to adapt to changing circumstances, i.e evasive action by pirates, are issued against pirate sites.

If these ‘dynamic injunctions’ and a Piracy Shield-type system turned up in the UK tomorrow, the scenarios outlined in the articles above definitely would not happen, and for very good reason.

Always Credit The Source

Dynamic injunctions for tackling live sports piracy were actually pioneered and developed in the UK, by none other than the Premier League.

In fact, in Football Association Premier League Ltd v British Telecommunications Plc & Ors. (2017/2018) , the High Court of England and Wales issued the first ever dynamic injunctions for tackling live sports in favor of the Premier League. Since then, such injunctions have been in constant force at ISPs around the country, season in, season out, controlled and executed by the by Premier League’s own system.

That’s six/seven years of experience for the Premier League. Piracy Shield launched four weeks ago.

Think of it like the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where King Arthur tries to use the Holy Grail as leverage over the master of a French castle, but is informed that the master probably won’t be interested since “he’s already got one.”

Or just make something up.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Si vous voulez monter votre propre service IPTV pour vos besoins personnels et arrêter de payer des services mafieux ou décodeurs pirates pour regarder de la TV en streaming, j’ai ce qu’il vous faut en accès gratuit.

Il s’agit d’ un dépôt Github qui compile une playlist au format .m3u regroupant de nombreux streams en IPTV. Attention, comme la radio en streaming , rien d’illégal pour l’utilisateur ici, c’est tout simplement des chaînes dont les flux sont accessibles gratuitement et légalement sur le web sans décodeur .

Pour le commun des mortels, ça suffira largement à votre bonheur, et vous pourrez lire toutes ces chaînes sans céder à l’achat d’un boitier IPTV ou abonnement IPTV spécifique. Un simple lecteur vidéo comme VLC suffira. Ça fonctionnera également sur votre téléviseur avec l’application Smart IPTV ou sur votre box Android.

Pour commencer à regarder la TV sans décodeur ni box android, lancez simplement VLC ou tout autre lecteur vidéo capable de lire les fichiers M3U comme Kodi puis faites Fichier -> Ouvrir un flux réseau et copiez-collez simplement le lien suivant :

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Free-TV/IPTV/master/playlist.m3u8

Cette playlist regroupe des chaînes TV gratuites du monde entier, soit localement en hertzien, soit gratuitement sur internet via des services comme :

• Plex TV
• Pluto TV (en anglais, espagnol, français, italien)
• Redbox Live TV
• Roku TV
• Samsung TV Plus
• Chaînes Youtube en direct

Il y a du contenu en accès gratuit pour tous les goûts et ça vous changera de votre box Android avec uniquement Molotov installé dessus.

Cette liste est maintenue par une communauté de bénévoles avec une philosophie de qualité plutôt que quantité. Seules les meilleures chaînes gratuites et grand public sont incluses, pas de chaînes adultes, religieuses ou politiques. Les flux proviennent de sources comme le dépôt Github IPTV ou Youtube.

Et si VLC ça ne vous convient pas, vous pouvez également passer par un service en ligne en accès gratuit comme Whats Up TV qui est capable de charger des playlists M3U pour vous afficher ensuite les chaînes. Une sorte de client web si vous préférez. À vous les contenus info, cinéma et divertissement.

Profitez en bien !