Friday, February 1st, 2019

Time	Event
9:04a	Pirate IPTV Device Seller Fined Following Sky Investigation Since Sky is the leading subscription TV provider in the UK, avoiding its charges is high on the agenda for many people. The initial question is whether to learn how to program set-top devices online, or whether to pay one of hundreds or even thousands of sellers dotted around the country. These people, often motivated by the lure of a few hundred pounds profit per year, will supply pre-programmed devices. Others, that are sometimes a bit more savvy, will often throw in a pirate IPTV subscription for a higher quality and hopefully more reliable service. While most of these sellers act with impunity, that wasn’t the case for Ryan Jackson of Rhayader, Wales. Following an investigation by local Trading Standards and Sky TV, the father-of-two admitted four offenses under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, three relating to selling devices configured to circumvent technological measures and one for breach of copyright for financial gain. According to a BBC Wales report, Jackson was spotted selling devices on his Facebook page when Powys County Council and Sky were looking for infringers on social media and eBay. Like many in this line of business, Jackson was offering piracy-configured Amazon devices, granting free access to Sky content. However, he was also selling subscription access to unlicensed IPTV services. Sky reportedly made a test purchase and received a so-called “fully loaded” stick for £105. According to the prosecution, between January 2016 and August 2018, Jackson received around £18,183 into his PayPal account from similar transactions. While PayPal is convenient, it also carries detailed records which can be very useful during these types of investigations. Local publication Brecon-Radnor reports that Jackson’s PayPal account revealed the sale of IPTV packages to 84 customers. According to Sky, this translated to £576 per user if packages had been bought officially, amounting to a total of £48,384 in lost revenue for the broadcaster. According to Powys County Council, however, Jackson only made between £10 and £30 profit per customer, meaning that his total net earnings were between £840 and £2,500 in total. At the end of the hearing, Jackson was fined £1,340 and ordered to pay £4,070 in costs plus a £34 surcharge. “It was not an intelligent thing to do,” the magistrate told Jackson. “You are paying much more than you made.” Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons. (Comment on this)
5:39p	Movie Piracy ‘Alternative’ UltraViolet is Shutting Down When UltraViolet was first launched eight years ago, it was portrayed as a convenient alternative to piracy. The cloud-based service, backed by major Hollywood studios, allows users to store digital copies of purchased films and TV-shows, which they can then easily access on various platforms and devices. In the years that followed UltraViolet amassed over 30 million users, but in recent times things went downhill. The number of supported retailers slowly started to drop and this week parent organization DECE threw in the towel, Variety reports. According to the official announcement, the planned closure on July 31 was triggered by “market factors” including the rise of new platforms. “In the years since UltraViolet’s launch, we’ve seen the emergence of services that provide expanded options for content collection and management independent of UltraViolet.  This and other market factors have led to the decision to discontinue UltraViolet,” the statement reads. While it’s not uncommon for services to go out of business when technology and markets progress, with digital content it’s often a sensitive issue. Especially for a platform that was once seen as a modern piracy alternative. Those millions of UltraViolet users now realize that ‘cloud’ ownership is not the same as a physical Bru-ray or a DRM free download. The movies they own in their digital lockers will soon be locked up for good. With this in mind, it’s interesting to revisit some comments industry insiders made about the service in the past. Former DECE CEO Mark Teitell, for example, said that UltraViolet fulfills “a real belief among consumers that if they own [content], they should be able to watch it. No fear of losing things you buy, with the additional value that cloud storage eliminates problems if discs are lost, broken or scratched.” Or what about Thomas Gewecke, former president of Warner Bros. Digital Distribution, who previously described UltraViolet as “a new service for giving consumers a new relationship with ownership.” This new relationship with ownership certainly has a new meaning now. After July 31, users can no longer access their movies on the UltraViolet service. The good news is that in ‘most’ cases, users can still redeem their UltraViolet codes through the retailers which are still operating. This includes VUDU, Kaleidescape, and Sony Pictures. “In most cases, we anticipate very little impact,” DECE notes. “While there could be some disruption, we do not anticipate this on a broad scale and are working diligently to minimize and avoid such instances.” In all fairness, the digital ownership caveats are in no way limited to UltraViolet. Any digital media platform can ultimately go out of business. Or just as bad, depending on the rights, a movie could simply disappear from your library, including iTunes. There is simply no guaranteed perpetual right of digital ownership for movie customers. But at least there are no scratched DVDs either. Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons. (Comment on this)

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