For the past few years, regional police forces in the UK have shown a growing interest in cracking down on those involved in the supply of illegal streams.

With regional organized crime units now part of the mix, joint press releases featuring police, the Premier League, Sky, and the Federation Against Copyright Theft, report enforcement action on a fairly regular basis. The importance of protecting copyright holders from criminal groups is the overriding message but for the last 12 months in particular, emphasis has shifted to include those who consume pirated content too.

A see-saw of deterrent messaging warns consumers not to become a victim of crime , through malware, fraud, and identity theft, for example. As that pushes pirates down on one side, the journey back up sees the same people warned of potential convictions for fraud, in this case for obtaining services dishonestly.

Baseless Threats or Genuine Intent?

Recent coordinated amplification of these threats in the tabloids has certainly raised awareness. Unfortunately, however, massive revving of the engine not only came too soon, but has left deterrent messaging with almost nowhere to go. Casual pirates are asking more questions than they did before. That may be considered a plus but, when it comes to weighing up risk, the lack of information weighs in favor of pirates , not against.

The big question, then, is whether there’s any real intent behind the stark warnings. Since history has a habit of predicting the future, knowing what has been happening on the enforcement front could prove informative. Two Freedom of Information requests published this week asked two regional police forces to fill in the gaps.

The first, dated December 19, 2023, was directed at Wiltshire Police. It asked the following questions, all related to live sports streaming piracy, for the years 2019 to 2023 inclusive. (Questions edited to remove repetition)

1. How many people were cautioned for viewing illegal streams?
2. ….. were given penalty notices for viewing illegal streams?
3. ….. were arrested for viewing illegal streams?
4. ….. were cautioned for distributing / supplying illegal streaming services?
5. ….. were given penalty notices for distributing / supplying illegal streaming services?
6. ….. were arrested for distributing / supplying illegal streaming services?
7. For questions 4, 5 & 6, how many were supplying illegal streams digitally?
8. For questions 4, 5, & 6, were supplying illegal streams through dodgy boxes/firesticks?

Since any convictions of note are extremely well-publicized for deterrent purposes, ballpark figures are more readily available for distribution-related offenses. Question 7 appears somewhat redundant and only the person who asked the question would know the purpose of number eight.

It would be interesting to know the specific figures for 3, 4 and 5, while the answer to 6 would be much more valuable if placed against the number people actually prosecuted, rather than simply arrested.

No Information Provided, Too Expensive to Process

Of most interest, in our opinion, are the questions relating to those who faced action for simply viewing streams. The answers to those might inform those who remain undecided about the nature of recent warnings. Unfortunately, Wiltshire Police provided nothing of value.

The key points from the Force Disclosure Decision Maker’s response read as follows:

The information that you are requesting is not stored in a way which permits easy retrieval. This is because illegal streaming does not have a specific crime code on our system. Therefore, in order to ascertain whether a caution was given due to illegal sports streaming, we would have to go into each individual occurrence on our system to determine whether this is related to the matter in question.

Under the circumstances I am absolutely confident that to locate, retrieve and extract the information you seek would by far exceed the time obligations upon this authority to comply, and in so doing would exceed the fees limits. This is set at £450 calculated at a flat rate of £25 per hour for those work activities comprising of confirming the information is held, locating it, retrieving it and extracting it.

Ordinarily under our Section 16 duty to provide advice and assistance, we would advise you how to refine your request to a more manageable level. However, due to the difficulties outlined above, I cannot see how this can be achieved in this particular case.

The questions sent to West Yorkshire police were broadly similar. This time, however, the decision to suggest specific keyword searches such as ‘set-top box’, ‘top box piracy’, ‘Kodi’, ‘IPTV’, ‘firestick’, ‘dodgy box’ & ‘internet TV media box’, plus ‘sports streaming’, ‘sports piracy’, ‘illegal streaming’, and ‘football streaming’, may have unintentionally captured other offenses.

“Between 01/01/2019 and 18/12/2023 there were 1,287 crimes recorded based on the offenses and/or keywords provided. In order to provide a response to the full question set would involve a manual review of each crime. At an estimate of 1 minute per record this would take 22 hours to provide. In addition to this there were 1,939 arrests for the aforementioned offenses taking a further 65 hours at 2 minutes each,” the response reads.

“Unfortunately, West Yorkshire Police are unable to provide you with the information requested.”

Yorkshire Police note that a revised request may be considered but even then, reasons exist for not providing the requested information.

“We may be able to provide you with information based on crimes classified as an offense under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and specifically related to illegal streaming. Please note however any information held is subject to exemptions under the Freedom of information Act,” the rejection notice adds.

It’s worth noting that viewers of illegal streams have been advised of a potential offense under the Fraud Act.

Lack of Access to Information

That the requests were unsuccessful doesn’t come as an especially big surprise. We’ve had our own narrow requests rejected in the past, and we’ve seen other requests handled in the same way. What does seem remarkable is that scant police resources are being deployed to tackle a very specific type of crime, as part of a national campaign that has government support, yet readily accessible figures are simply unavailable.

That raises the question of whether deterrent and enforcement measures undergo evaluation for efficacy within the force, or if rightsholders supply that information for the guidance of the police. If that’s the case, even in part, history shows that the problem is perpetual, rarely improves for very long, and only responds to changes in the market that are non-reliant on force.

Avon & Somerset Police Has Its Own Pirate Website

While trying to determine whether additional FOIA requests had been filed with other forces in the UK, something rather bizarre caught our attention.

The website of Avon & Somerset Police is usually available at avonandsomerset.police.uk and indeed still is, as the image below (left) shows.

On the right is the website as it appears on the ‘opcc-maintenance’ subdomain of avonandsomerset.police.uk. The small text on the left, whatever it means, was enlarged by us. That doesn’t look like a standard police-issue font.

More significant concerns appear in search engines where at least hundreds of police URLs containing the ‘rogue’ subdomain now advertise pirate streams of live sporting events.

It’s possible the subdomain started life as a staging area for web development but as the image below shows, the current situation goes way beyond that.

On the left of the image is a small sample of the modified URLs as listed in search engines. In the middle, a small selection of the hundreds or thousands of links claiming to offer pirated live streams. On the right is a screenshot of where people end up after clicking any of the police links containing the subdomain.

Mindful of all the malware stories lately, we progressed no further, even though the Australian Open was apparently on offer. Those visiting that portal via the links in search engines proceed at their own risk; anyone with the nerve to do this to a police website wouldn’t think twice about doing almost anything else, to anyone else, should the opportunity arise.

Avon & Somerset Police have been informed via the regular ‘report a crime’ system, but this may have been going on for quite some time already. There are no URLs listed on the Wayback Machine, but publicly-listed subdomain scans show that the problematic subdomain existed back in the summer of 2020.

The Freedom of Information requests can be found here and here (pdf)

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

TV drama ‘Mr Bates vs The Post Office’ tells the story of the Post Office ‘Horizon’ scandal and the lives torn apart by 700 “successful” private prosecutions of entirely innocent self-employed subpostmasters.

After the miniseries was seen by millions earlier this month, private prosecutions – which allow alleged victims of crime to prosecute their own criminal cases – are now a topic of national debate. As a result, the government is under pressure to act against what some believe is an emerging two-tier justice system.

Where the state lacks prosecution resources, capability, or both, and in fraud cases in particular, those with significant financial resources can obtain justice privately. Regular citizens, on the other hand, can not.

Private prosecutions are known for their high conviction rates; cases brought by the Federation Against Copyright Theft, the Premier League, and those involving Sky, are certainly no exception. While still controversial, Post Office-style scandals are largely avoided due to the nature of the cases; that doesn’t mean they always go to plan, however.

Serial ‘Entrepreneur’ Tests Out Piracy Market

A MEN report claims that 42-year-old Jordan Longbottom ran a ‘successful’ business selling pirate TV devices from his static caravan in Wales. By the time the case got to court, exactly how successful his venture had been was met with a significant difference of opinion.

A private prosecution brought by the Federation Against Copyright Theft alleged that Longbottom’s operation ran from August 2015 to May 2017. Using Facebook to attract customers, it was claimed he sold pirate TV boxes to “thousands” of customers at prices ranging from £100 to £175 each. At Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court, the prosecution claimed that Longbottom’s venture brought in up to £1 million; he disputed that with his own estimate of roughly £300,000.

Caravan Static, Longbottom On the Move

Officers from Greater Manchester Police raided Longbottom’s caravan in January 2017, but the entrepreneur wasn’t home, or even in the UK. The Brit was on holiday in Florida and didn’t return to the UK for another three months. When his plane touched down in March 2017, police welcomed him back onto British soil by placing him under arrest.

Successful private prosecutions in piracy cases are often reported in the tabloid media partly as a deterrent. Whether he read the stories, read them but didn’t believe them, or was simply indifferent, Longbottom’s March 2017 arrest had no effect on his pirate TV sales. With assistance from others that allowed him to take more of a back seat, sales continued until at least May 2017.

Guilty Plea, Plea For Leniency

Whether Longbottom’s business scheme generated £1 million or £300,000 or not; private prosecutions brought by FACT, including those involving in the Premier League, have seen people go to prison for much less than that. According to the defense, Longbottom was ‘terrified’ at the prospect of prison, but all things considered, this wasn’t actually the most serious of cases in the current climate, his lawyer argued.

Just as police funding cutbacks and a failure to invest in fraud-specific training has led to a rapid rise in fraud and a rise in private prosecutions , failure to invest means Britain’s prisons are full. As a result, prisoners are being released early and courts are being advised to only hand down immediate custodial sentences in the “most serious of cases.”

The judge’s comments suggest that he believed the conditions had still been met for a custodial sentence, but another factor tipped fortune in Longbottom’s favor. Having been arrested in 2017, it would be another five years before Longbottom was eventually summoned in June 2022.

The explanation for the “significant delay” was partly down to the “small legal team” behind the FACT prosecution having other casework, the court heard. The judge concluded that Longbottom would likely have been sentenced to prison if the case had been brought in a “more timely fashion” but that wasn’t the case here.

After pleading guilty to two offenses under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, and one offense under the Fraud Act, Longbottom was sentenced to 22 months in prison, suspended for 24 months, a Rehabilitation Activity Requirement (RAR) of 15 days under the Offender Rehabilitation Act, and 150 hours of unpaid work.

Reality Check

For a reality check, the Daily Mail’s latest scare story , part of a campaign that’s produced a series of stories since early December, claims that those who simply use illegal streaming platforms “could even face time behind bars.”

Citing Section 11 of the Fraud Act 2006 which covers ‘obtaining services dishonestly’, a conviction could mean 12 months in prison, the article warns, adding that if the offense “is a serious one”, those involved “could face a maximum sentence of five years.”

Scare Story? Yes. But Consider the Big Picture

Surprisingly, the Daily Mail is correct; that’s exactly what the law says, and it could happen, at least in theory. In practice, there’s some terminology to review first.

A ‘serious’ offense isn’t enough to warrant prison under the current advice, since only “the most serious” of cases qualify. Interestingly the judge had already noted that whether Longbottom had generated £1 million or £300K, the amount wouldn’t have made any difference to the sentence handed down.

It would be extremely foolish to replicate in a real-life scenario, but the standard set here is surprising. Apparently, it’s possible to sell thousands of pirate boxes and generate up to a million, get arrested but carry on for another three months regardless, hope for a delay on the prosecution side, and then just stay out of trouble for a while.

That being said, staying on the straight and narrow can be a challenge for some people.

New Beginning, New Piracy

In March 2017, the same month Longbottom was arrested, the self-professed entrepreneur launched a brand-new company. Companies House records reveal that Sat Tech UK (NW) Ltd was born on March 14, 2017, but just three months later was renamed to Smarterbuyz Ltd. After no accounts were ever filed for the company, it was dissolved via compulsory strike-off in April 2019 but not without controversy.

Longbottom’s new venture saw him enter the retro-gaming market, selling video game consoles pre-loaded with up to 50,000 ROMs containing games from Nintendo, Sega, and Sony, among others, under the brand Pi Retro Gaming . According to Trust Pilot reviews , it’s reasonable to conclude that some expectations were not met.

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

Pirate IPTV services are a major cause for concern among broadcasters globally. In Italy, illegal streaming has grown in relevance to become part of a nationwide conversation.

Fueled by a national passion for top-tier football matches, viewable only by those who can afford a subscription, pirate IPTV services and other illegal streaming platforms found fertile ground in Italy.

New law passed during the summer, which increased penalties for piracy while supporting a new automated blocking system , sent the clearest possible message. Regardless of cost, fans will find money for legal subscriptions, but only when illicit access no longer exists.

Police Announce Major Action Against IPTV Operation

Law enforcement agencies shared information with the press on Tuesday revealing a “vast operation” against audiovisual piracy in Italy. State Police, on the orders of the Anti-Mafia Directorate at the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Catania, executed nationwide search and seizure actions against members of a “transnational criminal organization.”

Investigations directed by the Prosecutor’s Office in Catania, and initiated by the Catania Cyber ​​Security Operations Center in coordination with the Postal Police of Rome, are said to have confirmed the existence of a criminal organization involved in the illicit supply of premium TV and on-demand video.

By offering illegal access to content owned by Sky, Mediaset, Amazon Prime, and Netflix, Postal Police say the group generated profits (not turnover) of several million euros per month.

The operation revealed yesterday targeted 21 suspected members of the organization active in Catania, Messina, Siracusa, Cosenza, Alessandria, Napoli, Salerno, Reggio Emilia, Pisa, Lucca, and Livorno e Bari. The Prosecutor’s Office accuses these individuals of various offenses, including transnational criminal association, damage/corruption of information (anyone who destroys, deteriorates, erases, alters or suppresses data or computer programs), unauthorized access to an IT system, and computer fraud.

IPTV Piracy Pyramid

Police say the organization was found to be organized in a ‘hierarchical manner’ with members fulfilling “distinct and very precise” roles. Promotors of the service were stationed throughout Italy and abroad.

“In order to evade investigations, the suspects made use of encrypted messaging applications, fictitious identities and false documents; the latter were also used for the registration of telephone accounts, credit cards, television subscriptions and server rental,” an announcement from the Postal Police reads.

“The presence on various social platforms of channels, groups, accounts, forums, blogs and profiles, were found to advertise the sale, on the national territory, of streams, panels and monthly subscriptions for the illegal viewing of audiovisual content which can also be used through numerous illegal ‘live streaming’ sites.”

Broadcasters, Anti-Piracy Groups, Welcome the Action

Broadcaster Sky Italia congratulated Italy’s Postal Police on a “new and important” anti-piracy operation.

“The police have our full support in their law enforcement activity, which over the years has become increasingly valuable to guarantee legality, to protect all those who legitimately use their favorite content,” said CEO Andrea Duilio.

“Countering this criminal phenomenon is a commitment that involves us all and now, thanks to the new anti-piracy law, we can do it even more effectively.”

Federico Bagnoli Rossi, President of anti-piracy group FAPAV, also welcomed a “very important” operation, describing it as a “hard blow towards those criminal mentalities that manage illegal IPTV and illicit live streaming platforms, whose revenues finance criminal acts of various types.”

What Wasn’t Announced

For reasons that aren’t immediately clear, press releases issued by various police forces made no mention of any arrests Tuesday. The only thing reported in respect of the 21 people allegedly targeted is that they’re currently under investigation. For comparison, a Postal Police statement following an unrelated operation clearly reported 28 arrests in that matter.

Among the information that was made available to the public, police noted that the group used false documents to rent servers. Other than that, however, there are no reports of servers or any other devices being seized. While it’s possible that for operational reasons details are being withheld, based on the available information it seems more likely that the 21 ‘under investigation’ are subscription sellers and/or resellers, rather than those actually running a pirate IPTV service.

“Inhibiting the Flow of Illegal Streams”

Claims that the authorities were reportedly able to block or “inhibit the flow” of illegal streams are further detailed in a La Sicilia report. The publication says that officers of the Postal Police were able to “seize 13 control panels” servicing “over 50 thousand users”. This appears to be a reference to reseller panels and would explain how police were able to disconnect subscribers serviced through those interfaces.

Finally, it’s worth highlighting how the group’s earnings are being reported. La Sicilia reports that given the vast audience serviced by the platform, this “guaranteed ‘six-figure’ earnings to the managers of the illegal online piracy network.” In a statement issued by the Postal Police, it’s alleged that the group generated profits (not turnover) of “several million euros per month.”

However, a separate statement published on the website of the State Police (Polizia di Stato) claims an even bigger amount. According to that report, the group generated monthly profits of tens of millions of euros .

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

The launch of the BeStreamWise online anti-piracy campaign early October was preceded by action in the ‘real’ world.

After being offered free lifetime subscriptions to a new streaming service from a pop-up stand in London’s Paddington Station, commuters were encouraged to sign up to ‘MalStreams’ using their real personal details.

Shortly after, a ‘scam’ was revealed; MalStreams didn’t exist but participants had been given a valuable lesson in security. Handing over personal and credit card details to strangers can be more dangerous than people think. Handing over financial details for a lifetime of free service suggests that some people don’t even think at all.

Run by Sky, Premier League, FACT, ITV, CrimeStoppers, and the UK Intellectual Property Office, among others, the campaign aims to raise awareness of the potential risks of using illegal streaming services.

Handing over personal and financial information to strangers can have unexpected consequences, as the ‘customers’ of MalStreams quickly discovered. The same applies when people install streaming apps offering premium content for free. Football matches and movies for nothing may sound attractive, the campaign explains, but exposing devices to the risk of malware infection is something few people want.

Further details on malware risks are available on the BeStreamWise website, at least for those able to access it right now.

BeStreamWise.com Blocked For Security Reasons

After being informed that BeStreamWise.com was ‘down’ last evening for no obvious reason, some quick tests revealed a curious situation. The site could be accessed as normal using a VPN but without one it simply wouldn’t load.

Hoping to find out who, if anyone, was blocking the site, a few network tests revealed that requests were being blocked before even escaping the LAN. The culprit was found in one of the routers where for the first time in over a year, a site had triggered blocking measures on non-VPN outbound traffic.

According to the AI protection service supplied by Trend Micro, the domain had been blocked for phishing. A subsequent test on the Trend Micro global portal returned the same result, with the following detail: Fraudulent sites that mimic legitimate sites to gather sensitive information, such as user names and passwords.

Since so-called ‘false positives’ are not unusual, checking with other security vendors can help to shine a light on situations like these. Unfortunately, that failed to clear things up as expected, at least not initially.

Multiple Security Vendors Report Malicious Behavior

Subsequent tests revealed that Avira had also flagged BeStreamWise.com for phishing, CDRF and CyRadar had settled on malicious, while AlphaMountain simply reported suspicious activity.

Thanks to its bold layout, however, URLScan.io quickly provided information that may explain why BeStreamWise was flagged for suspected phishing, which entity it was believed to be masquerading as, and who vendors may have been trying to protect.

Whatever the specific reasons behind the alerts, the above indicates that the BeStreamWise domain faces allegations of impersonating Sky. The broadcaster actually runs the campaign site on its own infrastructure, making foul play unlikely, but whether this largely unadvertised direct connection played a part in these alerts is unknown.

For its part, the BeStreamWise campaign believes there’s little to be concerned about.

“BeStreamWise.com raises awareness of the risks involved in illegal streaming. Given the nature of the topic, we are extremely vigilant over the security of the site. It is functioning normally and we have not detected any issues, but we will continue to investigate,” a spokesperson informs TorrentFreak.

While the campaign doesn’t believe there’s much to worry about, these warnings aren’t new and may even precede the campaign’s official launch.

Domain Flagged Since Before Official Launch

The results of at least five full scans are available on URLScan and potentially more if any scans were designated as private. The oldest scan was carried out on September 28 , followed by others on October 7 , October 17 , and October 19 .

All of these scans signaled ‘malicious behavior’ which raises the question of how many people tried to visit BeStreamWise over the past couple of months to learn about malware, only to be blocked from accessing it due to a possible risk of malware.

Bad Labeling, Bad Outcomes

Another potential issue lies with Comodo’s Xcitium Verdict Cloud , which has categorized BeStreamWise.com as a ‘media sharing’ site. This type of mislabeling can have serious knock-on effects, as we’re only too aware.

TorrentFreak has been wrongfully categorized as a media-sharing platform on more than one occasion, which led to readers being prevented from accessing the site via public WiFi services on more than one occasion .

In 2018, Comcast erroneously blocked TorrentFreak for being ‘suspicious’ and in 2013, customers of Sky were unable to access the site after an exploit placed us on the UK’s pirate site blocking list.

So to summarize, watch out for malware but remember that not all reports of malware are accurate. Also be aware that when pirate apps receive a clean bill of health following a malware scan, in a worrying number of more recent cases that can mean absolutely nothing. Not exactly a comfort, but reality nonetheless.

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

In the absence of sudden momentous events, shaping entrenched public opinion requires astute calculations and considerable patience, built on a foundation of financial power.

Right now and most likely for the foreseeable future, the corporations behind the BeStreamWise anti-piracy campaign believe that given enough time, attitudes towards pirate IPTV devices can be shaped in favor of legal alternatives.

The main strategy observed to date aims to increase sensitivity to risk by constantly associating piracy with crimes against the individual; malware-infested devices stealing banking details, IPTV operators’ involvement in wider, exponentially more serious crime , and messaging that portrays subscription payments fueling that criminality, whatever it might be.

Sensational Can Work, Unbelievable Does Not

The final piece of the jigsaw uses practical actions in the physical world to show that IPTV operators and their customers face a genuine risk of legal action. Nurturing perceptions that prosecutions are both real and expanding are nothing new to the anti-piracy scene yet continue to face significant challenges.

In January, amplification led to widespread belief that police were visiting the homes of 1,000 Premier League pirates. Not only was that untrue but the end result was a doubled-edged sword. On one hand, huge numbers of people were exposed to a ‘new reality’ of heightened, imminent risk. On the other, the numbers were simply too big to survive a cheap calculator and common sense.

That no obvious effort was expended to correct the reports wasn’t a surprise from a commercial perspective. However, given the direct involvement of the police, tackling misinformation arguably forms part of the service.

Interestingly, it now transpires that police forces around the UK were under instruction to remain silent on specific details of the operation. Before we address that, here’s some fresh news for context.

FACT and Sky Target IPTV Service Providers

In a press release Monday, FACT and Sky announced details of a new operation conducted with support from regional police forces in the UK. After identifying “almost 50 illegal IPTV service providers” offering live TV and movies, the operators were issued with legal warnings “delivered in person, by post, and by email.”

The ‘cease-and-desist’ notices instruct those running the services to immediately stop their illegal streaming activity otherwise risk facing criminal prosecution. Addresses across the UK were visited in person, from London, Dorset, Cambridgeshire, West Midlands, North Midlands, West Yorkshire, Greater Manchester and to one address in Scotland.

FACT and Sky went on to clarify that exactly 47 legal notices were issued and that led to the majority of the illegal services being taken down. Such specifics are increasingly rare but welcome nonetheless; details expressed in non-ambiguous language build confidence and trust in the message being delivered, a plus for the overall goal.

Under pressure to tackle what is clearly a major problem for rightsholders, similar press releases worldwide trend towards vague language vulnerable to misinterpretation and reporting that portrays events as bigger, more dramatic, and ultimately more consequential than they really are. That can be a welcome bonus, but not always.

Metropolitan Police: “Don’t Disclose Details on Numbers of Visits”

The misinterpreted “1,000 homes” claim that exploded from news of a similar cease-and-desist campaign in January is now all but the truth according to Google’s search results. Whether early outreach to the media could have prevented the spread of misinformation is unknown, but it appears that police were under specific instruction not to discuss the scale of the operation.

Evidence appears in a document published by the Greater London Authority’s London Assembly , a 25-member elected body that scrutinizes the work of the Mayor and Mayoral advisers and holds them to account.

In February 2023, politician Susan Hall, a councillor on Harrow London Borough Council and then leader of the London Conservatives on the London Assembly, sought information from the Mayor on the “1,000 homes” operation. The question itself shows that even those with direct access to powerful political leaders are susceptible to misinformation.

“It was recently reported that the police are set to visit 1,000 homes to talk about their use of illegal online streams. How many of these visits will be/have been in London?” the question reads.

The official response, reproduced verbatim below, confirms that 1,000 homes were not visited. More importantly, it reveals that London’s Metropolitan Police asked forces around the UK not to disclose details on the number of visits carried out.

Date: Friday 10 March 2023

Between 9th – 24th January 2023, Operation Raider Plus, a national campaign to protect the public from harm online, led by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) and supported by the City of London Police’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU), the Government Agency Intelligence Network (GAIN) and West Mercia Police, identified over 1,000 subscribers to illegal sports streaming services.

These individuals either received an in-person visit or were sent a cease-and-desist letter. Officers from the Metropolitan Police Services (MPS) accompanied FACT on visits in London, warning individuals of the consequences of cybercrime, which include funding criminal organizations and exposing themselves to fraud, scams, inappropriate content, viruses and malware.

FACT have asked forces not to disclose details on the number of visits made and letters sent, so as not to reduce any deterrent effect, and the MPS would ask that this position be respected.

On an ordinary level, deterrent effects are both valuable and worthy of protection, but this is no ordinary case.

While the campaign itself tackles a specific type of crime, first and foremost it’s described as “a national campaign to protect the public from harm online.” Nowhere is it mentioned that this and similar operations are initiated on behalf of rightsholders with the primary aim of reducing piracy and increasing sales.

Public/private partnerships like these are being promoted as the future of anti-piracy enforcement worldwide.

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

The Italian government, lawmakers, telecoms regulator AGCOM, broadcasters, and football leagues invested considerable resources to get new law over the finishing line in July.

While one aspect of the law focuses on blocking access to pirate services , another ramps up punishments for those caught supplying illegal streams and customers who buy subscriptions to watch them.

Financial Police Raid Pirate IPTV Provider

In what may be the first major action following the introduction of the new law, Italy’s Guardia di Finanza (GdF) says it has shut down an IPTV provider in the southern Italian town of Canosa di Puglia.

“The financiers of the Barletta Group, as part of an initiative dedicated to combating television piracy, following extensive investigative activity, discovered an illegal transmission center for the channels of the SKY platform,” GdF (Financial Police) reports.

After being named in connection with similar operations in 2022, investigators of the Fiamme Gialle are also credited here for the discovery of a server room in Canosa.

Equipment Seized

According to GdF, the Barletta Provincial Command investigators’ work led to a raid and the discovery of five high-powered computers, 33 decoders used to acquire the original broadcasts, plus 12 video encoders used at the rebroadcasting stage.

Aside from computers, a maze of cables, and nine power adaptors perilously plugged into a single mains power extension, one of the images provided by GdF reveals a monitor displaying a purple interface. Once zoomed in, the image offers more detail on how the service operated.

The text and interface in the image suggest that the sources of at least some original streams were satellite broadcasts decoded on-site using relatively cheap receivers configured for card-sharing (CCCAM).

The image below is not associated with the raid but shows the interface of a similar decoder when connected to a card-sharing server; the one in the police image has been disconnected.

In the police image the name of the card-sharing provider is in view but too blurry for positive identification at the resolution available.

The decoders, on the other hand, appear to be GT Media V8 devices, most of which have the protective film still in place. They’re inexpensive and widely available.

Equipment Was Fully Operational

Whether the suspect was taken by surprise or busy elsewhere isn’t made clear, but GdF says the equipment was fully operational when officers arrived.

“The equipment identified, functioning and operational at the time of the Financiers’ access, was used to illicitly transmit the pay TV contents to thousands of users, who are currently being identified,” GdF says.

The operator has been reported for copyright violations and if found guilty will face enhanced penalties under the new law. Police are suggesting that the provider’s customers may also face action; thanks to “seized materials it will be possible to identify the names of the end users and evaluate any proceedings against them,” GdF notes.

Italy has a lot of experience prosecuting suppliers but much less on the consumer side. For members of the casually-pirating public reliant on the media for information and guidance, legal detail and nuance tend to be lacking. As a result, the next few months could present a very steep learning curve for the less tech-savvy.

For those who signed up to the service with their real name, accurate contact details, and/or easily traceable payment methods, regret is likely to follow if the authorities take action.

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

Dozens of large anti-piracy awareness campaigns have come and gone over the years and while approaches have differed, there’s no confusion when it comes to their common goal.

With serious heavyweight backing, the new ‘BeStreamWise’ anti-piracy campaign aims to deter the use of pirate IPTV services in the UK. It deploys familiar techniques to shape public perception but right off the bat there’s an elephant in the room.

At least as far as we can determine, there have been no press releases heralding BeStreamWise, or indeed any other mainstream media efforts that could ensure maximum penetration for what is obviously an awareness campaign.

That being said, there are some indications that a short video produced by BeStreamWise has already been seen by hundreds of thousands of people. With a running time of just 15 seconds it’s certainly short, but if a campaign wanted to target social media and/or search engine users looking for something in particular, dropping in something like this would make perfect sense.

Uploaded to YouTube on September 12, the clip above already has over 484,000 views but not even one person was moved to leave a comment. The BeStreamWise channel itself has only six subscribers, but it appears that the campaign didn’t begin online.

People Love Offers Too Good to Be True

To demonstrate how easily people will hand over their personal details, BeStreamWise hired Jenny Radcliffe, aka ‘The People Hacker’.

Radcliffe lectures on topics including social engineering, frauds and con artistry. Here she plays a salesperson for a new streaming service called MalStreams, offering free lifetime subscriptions from a pop-up stand in London’s Paddington Station.

The ‘con’ strategy deployed here is simple; First, commuters’ faith in the judgment of the management team behind one of the most famous stations in the country probably precluded the possibility of a brazen, broad daylight scam.

Couple that with the unlikely scenario that scammers accepted the considerable expense and risk of selling an illegal product in a high-footfall location, the targets’ preconceptions most likely ruled an illegal product completely out. As a result, at least a handful of people liked the idea of ‘free streaming for life’ and went on to sign up to the bogus MalStreams service .

Unsurprisingly, the number of people who rejected the too-good-to-be-true offer isn’t revealed; it’s a campaign to shape public perceptions after all, not a peer-reviewed study. Those who did fill in their personal details were subjected to a clip depicting some kind of hacker attack, followed by the message: “You’ve Just Let Criminals In.”

“Streaming services offering free content from other platforms can be too good to be true and aren’t always legal. Illegal streaming can let criminals into your devices and network. Giving them access to your personal and financial information, exposing you to scams, fraud and even identity theft,” ‘subscribers’ were informed after the dust settled.

“BeStreamWise and recognize the personal dangers of illegal streaming. Find safer ways to enjoy your favorite content on BeStreamWise.com.”

The BeStreamWise Portal

The campaign portal rigidly follows current anti-piracy messaging by focusing on the four pillars of danger established over the past few years (cited verbatim) .

Viruses and Malware: When accessing illegal streams, whether through free streaming sites or via apps, add-ons or devices, you are at risk of receiving malicious software. This gives criminals access to your network or your device compromising your personal data.

ID Theft, Scams, Fraud: Streaming via illegal methods puts you at risk of being exposed to fraud and data theft. This risk increases significantly when users exchange credit or debit card information to view content on unregulated and illicit websites.

Inappropriate Content: Watching content via an illicit source can expose younger viewers to age-inappropriate content. These unauthorized websites, devices, apps, add-ons, and the content they can access have no parental controls.

Funding Wider Criminality: When you use illegal streams, you risk letting criminals in. Illegal streaming services are increasingly operated by sophisticated criminal networks, often involved in other types of crime.

Who Wants Brits to BeStreamWise?

The campaign portal presents BeStreamWise as an organization made up of eight named members and possibly more. In the order they appear: Federation Against Copyright Theft, the UK government’s Intellectual Property Office, the CrimeStoppers charity, British Association for Screen Entertainment (BASE), Sky, Premier League, and free-to-air broadcaster, ITV.

While Sky, Premier League and ITV are well known in their own right, BASE (which used to be a member of FACT) is particularly worthy of mention.

BASE members include Universal, Disney, Warner Brothers, MGM, Paramount, Sony Pictures, StudioCanal, Sky Store, Virgin Media, BT TV, CrunchyRoll, Kaleidoscope, Lionsgate, Mattel, Freemantle Media, and Spirit Entertainment, the largest independent home entertainment sales and distribution company handling content for the BBC, Film4, and ITV Studios.

Members of the Irish Industry Trust For IP Awareness include Sky, Warner Bros., and Sony Pictures, and it appears the BeStreamWise campaign has already taken to the streets of Belfast. The billboard in the image above was snapped by a Reddit user in the past few days.

While there are a number of campaign participants , Sky’s involvement stands out in a number of ways.

Links in the footer of the BeStreamWise website link to terms and conditions and privacy pages on Sky websites, while the bestreamwise.com domain’s security certificate is directly linked to other Sky domains.

This could simply mean that the broadcaster’s contribution includes technical assistance but Sky UK Limited is also listed as the owner of trademark application UK00003955720 . Dated September 2023, the BeStreamWise trademark covers the categories listed below.

Facts From Studies Unavailable to the Public

As one might expect, the portal also features claims from various studies , including 90% of Illegal Streaming Sites Are Classified as Risky , 32% of People Have Been Victims of Fraud , and 2.7 Million Devices Have Been Infected With Viruses .

The names of the studies are cited but beyond the curated soundbites previously offered by the industry groups that commissioned the research, the studies aren’t openly published or even made fully available on request. As previously reported, requests to see underlying research have met with obstruction , which by default casts doubt on all claims, at least until properly evidenced.

That doesn’t imply that threats don’t exist, they certainly do, but if an entire campaign is based on the existence of specific, ubiquitous threats, there can be zero harm in linking to the full studies, including the methodology.

Until then, many of the companies listed above are facing the prospect of a new round of website blocking, this time featuring their own domain. Following an allegation of spreading misinformation, bestreamwise.com has been placed on a popular DNS blocklist which aims to “keep the internet clean.”

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

Despite widespread publicity and overt campaigns warning of the criminal consequences, there’s still no shortage of people prepared to openly sell piracy-configured set-top boxes and pirate IPTV subscriptions.

In broad terms, awareness has improved over the last couple of years but, for those who got involved many years ago, historic perceptions may have been somewhat different. In the case of two men from Northern Ireland, an investigation by Sky and the police shouldn’t have come as a surprise but the fact that it took five years to reach its ultimate conclusion probably wasn’t anticipated.

Pirate Set-Top Boxes, Pirate IPTV Services

This week the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) revealed that detectives and broadcaster Sky carried out an investigation into the sale of devices “used for provision of pirated TV channels” and the “supply of streaming services (IPTV).”

Between September 2018 and January 2019, the operation focused on a Belfast business run by two local men, 43-year-old Padraig McVicker and 27-year-old Gary Doherty. While PSNI provide no further details on the nature of the business, Companies House data reveals that McVicker was the sole director of a company involved in various aspects of the satellite TV trade.

A second company, Free TV NI Limited, in which McVicker and Doherty both held directorships, was initially registered as a seller of second hand goods. While that may have been the case, adverts on platforms including Yell show that the company was also involved in satellite TV sales, installation, and repair.

According to the ads, the company also sold various IPTV devices . In terms of legality, that’s not an issue provided they’re not configured for piracy but when they are, prosecutors have several opportunities available to them.

Prosecutions and Guilty Pleas

PSNI notes that after being arrested and charged, McVicker and Doherty both entered guilty pleas to a number of offenses under various legislation.

Under Section 297A(a) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, both men admitted “Selling, Distributing Or Letting For Hire Or Exposing For Sale Or Hire An Unauthorized Decoder.”

The legislation states that “a person who makes, imports, sells or lets for hire any unauthorized decoder shall be guilty of an offense.” Those who can prove they didn’t know that a decoder was unauthorized do not commit a crime, but that doesn’t appear to have been the case here.

McVicker also pled guilty to an offense contrary to Section 126(1) of the Communications Act 2003, which relates to the possession of “apparatus” for dishonestly obtaining electronic services.

Under that legislation , a person is guilty of an offense “if he has in his possession or under his control” anything that may be used for obtaining an electronic communications service or connection with obtaining such a service. Again, intent plays a key role here.

McVicker further admitted possessing criminal property, contrary to Section 329 (1)(c) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

Sentencing at Belfast Crown Court

At Belfast Crown Court on Tuesday, McVicker was sentenced to eight months in prison, with a further eight months on license for offenses under Section 297A(a) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act.

For possession of apparatus for dishonestly obtaining services contrary to Section 126(1) of the Communications Act, he received a prison sentence of six months, although that will be served concurrently.

Gary Doherty’s offenses contrary to Section 297A(a) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act earned him 175 hours of community service.

PSNI and Sky Welcome Convictions

Commenting on the sentences, Detective Chief Inspector Tom Phillips, Police Service Lead on Intellectual Property Crime, highlighted the key differences between standard IPTV devices and those that have been modified.

“IPTV devices are legal when used to view free or legitimate paid-for subscription services and channels, but once adapted or reconfigured to stream content without the appropriate licenses and consent of creators, they become illegal,” he said.

“People think these are victimless crimes but often behind these services are international organized crime gangs, who engage in the most serious of offenses,” he added.

PSNI made no claims that the Belfast men were part of an international organized crime gang but took the opportunity to extend a warning to users of IPTV services.

“Users and subscribers of illegal services should also be aware that they too are committing an offense for which they can be prosecuted,” he said.

Broadcaster Sky said it welcomed the sentences and joined PSNI in issuing a warning to users.

“We were pleased to support the Police Service of Northern Ireland in taking this action, both to prevent access to stolen Sky content and also to protect consumers from the real risks of accessing content in this way,” said Matt Hibbert, Sky’s Director of Anti-Piracy, UK and Ireland.

Sky did not clarify what risks, if any, users of the convicted men’s devices were exposed to.

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

Last month the European Commission (EC) issued a call for evidence to support an incoming “toolbox” of measures to combat live sports piracy.

The announcement followed a huge campaign by rightsholders last October. Organizations and companies, including the MPA, UEFA, Premier League, beIN, LaLiga, Serie A, Sky, and BT Sport, called on the EC to introduce new law that would compel intermediaries to take pirate streams offline within minutes of a complaint.

After denying the request , the EC offered an opportunity for rightsholders and other stakeholders to file submissions detailing their problems along with possible solutions actionable under existing law.

Most major stakeholders filed submissions close to the deadline late Friday. The majority were filed by sports leagues and organizations, broadcasters, and/or affiliated anti-piracy groups. Cloudflare, CCIA Europe, and an Austrian ISP coalition represented the internet/comms/tech sector.

The Voices of Football

Despite being framed as a process to protect all live sports, it’s clear that the primary focus is to prevent European and UK football matches from appearing on pirate IPTV and similar web-based services. It therefore makes sense to focus on the demands of entities such as the Premier League, affiliated broadcasters, and the anti-piracy groups tasked with protecting their rights.

The Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA) represents football leagues and their broadcasters all over Europe. AAPA members played a key role in the campaign last October, and their current position remains completely unchanged.

“As signatories to the Call To Action to End Live Piracy Now, we would like to restate that an EU legislative instrument still remains the most efficient and effective way to tackle piracy of live content within and across Member States,” AAPA begins.

In the knowledge that’s not going to happen anytime soon, AAPA notes that since the purpose of the exercise is to “ prevent ” online piracy, the main focus should be on the immediate removal of infringing content via the notice and takedown mechanism.

What is a ‘Timely’ Takedown?

“The issue we have always had to face is the delayed response, if any, from online intermediaries that have been notified. The recently adopted Digital Services Act (DSA) makes no meaningful change to the concept of ‘expeditious’ removal currently enshrined in EU law,” the AAPA writes.

“The latter is open to interpretation from online intermediaries which, in many cases, means they will simply either not respond to notices or do so hours or days after the end of the live event. Many of them will exploit all ambiguities in the law to avoid acting at all – never mind expeditiously – which is why concrete measures need to be taken.”

To empower rightsholders in the face of slow or even total non-compliance, the AAPA says that clarification of takedown terms would allow it to build on the concept of “timely” removals introduced in the DSA. Since accurately identifying infringing content is reportedly straightforward, non-compliant intermediaries should be held responsible for any infringement.

“As live content is almost always watermarked and/or fingerprinted there is no question about identifying the stolen content which means the removal should be immediate and, in any case, well before the event terminates. In case online intermediaries do not remove access to the content in a timely manner, they should be held responsible for the harm caused to rights holders.”

If fingerprints are so easily detected and subscriber/device-level fingerprinting is available from multiple security vendors, that raises the question of why cutting off sources of infringing content isn’t a better option than battling to have streams taken down by uncooperative third parties. Perhaps we’ll hear more on this in due course.

EU-Wide Implementation of Proactive ISP Blocking

In several EU member states and the UK, rightsholders already obtain court injunctions that require ISPs to block pirate sites when they try to evade blocking. These ‘dynamic’ injunctions are useful but ‘live’ injunctions are favored by rightsholders tackling IPTV services since they offer even more flexibility.

In broad terms, some European courts authorize live injunctions with particular aims in mind, protecting football matches or PPV boxing events, for example. To thwart the efforts of pirate services seeking to evade specified domain or specified IP-address-based blocking, rightsholders are given the power to identify in advance any online locations that are likely to be used for piracy in the near future.

These are relayed to Internet service providers and rendered inaccessible, sometimes before events even begin. As such, live blocking injunctions are popular with rightsholders, but they’re not available in every member state. AAPA says this imbalance should be addressed by harmonizing this type of enforcement across the EU.

“The Commission should seek to create a level playing field and therefore replicate across the EU a powerful but carefully used approach to live blocking orders, bearing in mind that such actions shall not exclude rights holders who cannot act on the legal ground of copyright,” the anti-piracy group notes.

Cloudflare: Tackle Infringement at the Source

Cloudflare’s submission begins with an overview of the company’s approach to copyright infringement and examples of how it cooperates with rightsholders seeking to protect their content from piracy.

Cloudflare then moves on to the Digital Services Act (a common theme in many submissions) and the mechanisms it offers for dealing with illegal content, in ways that are proportionate to the harm, while offering transparency, due process, and remedy for incorrect actions.

“We believe those same standards must apply to any actions in the Commission’s toolkit for combating online piracy of live content,” Cloudflare informs the EC.

“The DSA assesses that the best way to address content challenges is at the source. Under the model outlined in the DSA , this is done by alerting hosting providers and owners of websites, who have the ability to remove content at a granular level, and who have an obligation to remove or disable access to it expeditiously under article 6.

“Article 9 of the DSA also poses clear conditions on orders to act against illegal content, which includes, amongst others a well-defined legal basis, the identity of the issuing authority and available redress mechanisms. From this, it follows that notice and take down orders should be targeted at the host of the live streamed content.”

Zero Transparency and Inevitable Blunders

Targeting infringing content at the source is not how rightsholder-favored dynamic/live injunctions work, quite the opposite in fact.

Instead of targeting sources of infringing content, blocking injunctions work on a regional level by ordering local ISPs to prevent internet users from accessing illegal streams, will leaving the streams intact. Rightsholders say that uncooperative hosting companies leave them with no other choice, and in fairness, that’s often the case when dealing with hosts of pirate services.

The problem – which is only getting worse as blocking injunctions develop – is the total lack of transparency which in turn fosters an environment of unaccountability. On one hand, rightsholders insist that if pirates obtain information relating to blocking, blocking becomes easier to counter. Since judges make decisions on the basis that their instructions will be carried out, all parties agree to render the blocking process completely opaque.

On the other hand, a complete lack of outside scrutiny means that when mistakes are made, and innocent third parties suffer due to erroneous or abusive blocking, no one is held to account. Certainly, no company, group or organization offers a public apology or compensation for those affected.

This isn’t a flaw in the system either – dynamic/live blocking and administrative website blocking programs are secretive by design, with the latter often operated under voluntary agreements. According to Cloudflare, blocking by IP address – which is favored against IPTV services – “often has serious unintended, unavoidable, and largely unreported consequences.”

Thousands of Legal Websites Have Been Blocked

As previously reported, ISPs in Austria were compelled to block Cloudflare itself in 2022, even though they knew that was wrong.

Thanks to a Supreme Court ruling, input from ISPs was no longer deemed necessary – all they had to do was blindly follow instructions and the letter of the law. It appears that Cloudflare has seen much, much worse.

“In another Member State, an ISP with a voluntary arrangement to block allegedly infringing content has, on multiple occasions, blocked thousands of unrelated websites using our services for its users,” Cloudflare’s submission reveals.

“Without any court oversight, this overblocking in some cases took days to remedy. Even though the Commission has focused on critical infrastructure reporting on outages in the NIS Directive, efforts to block for reasons of copyright infringement do not result in reporting on its unintended consequences, which look like outages for external parties.

“This lack of public awareness means we see few incentives for rightsholders or the ISPs involved to assume accountability for the overblocking, publicly describe what had happened, or represent that they would take steps to prevent overblocking in the future.”

In summary, stakeholders in the football sector believe that the Digital Services Act may offer opportunities to take infringing content down more quickly, while an expansion of ISP blocking across the EU may help to block content that doesn’t get taken down.

Cloudflare also supports the DSA’s takedown provisions but expects promised levels of transparency too. Infringing content should only be taken down at source though; not only because some deputies are a little bit trigger happy but because blocking does nothing to remove the source of the problem.

Image credits: Pixabay ( 1 , 2 )

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