Friday, June 28th, 2019

Time	Event
10:48a	Video Piracy Rates Drop Sharply, But For How Long? For many people, on-demand streaming services have become the standard for watching movies and TV-shows. In many countries, the idea of ‘on-demand’ video was popularized by piracy. This was often the only way for people to watch what they want, whenever they liked.  Over the past decade, the legal options have gradually improved. More content is available and people have plenty of options to stream the latest hit-series or Hollywood blockbusters.  According to new consumer research by Ampere Analysis, this is one of the reasons why video piracy rates are dropping in several countries, including the United States, France, Spain, and Germany.  The bar chart below shows the percentage of people who used one or more video piracy services in the previous month. Without exception, video piracy rates declined during the three year period from 2016 to 2019 in all countries that were polled.  The drop was most pronounced in France, the United States, and the Netherlands where the number of people using piracy services in the past month was decreased by more than half. Spain also saw a sharp decline, from 12% to 7%. Richard Broughton, Director at Ampere Analysis, links the changes to the increased availability of on-demand services, such as Netflix, which directly compete with piracy. “On average, in markets where either catch-up or SVoD online video viewing has risen the most, piracy has experienced the biggest drop. With the growth in all-you-can-eat legal services, users no longer need to turn to illegitimate sources to get their viewing fix,” Broughton notes. This is backed up by data. In Spain, for example, the use of legal SVoD and catch-up services grew by 47% while the number of people that use piracy services and sites dropped by 45%. While this is positive news for entertainment companies, there is also reason for concern. Increasingly, the legal video streaming landscape is becoming more fragmented or siloed. This means that people have to pay for more services to see what they want. These new restrictions could push people in the direction of pirate sites again.  “The on-demand market is moving into a period of ‘siloization’ where producer and distributor brands go direct to the consumer, at the same time restricting the amount of content they license to third party services,” Broughton says. “If the mainstream OTT players have less of the content users want to watch, when they want to watch it, there’s a genuine risk that usage of these SVoD and catch-up services could begin to slump, something the pirate operators will be quick to capitalize on.” This isn’t just a hypothetical threat either. Most households have a limited budget for online entertainment, so consumers eventually have to choose which services they want. This is a problem that keeps getting worse, especially now that more services have ‘exclusive’ titles. Recent research by piracy research firm MUSO revealed that 80.4% of UK consumers already feel that they’re already paying too much for content streaming. More than half of these said they were likely or very likely to use unlicensed platforms to search for content that’s not available to them. These people are all willing to pay. However, in order to get everything they want, they are happy to complement their legal viewing with the occasional pirate download or stream. 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)
7:20p	‘Pirate’ IPTV Service Simply-TV Responds to DISH Lawsuit In 2018, DISH Network and encryption partner NagraStar sued several individuals, companies and trusts collectively doing business as SETTV. As part of its $20 per month IPTV package, SETTV offered numerous TV channels that had been obtained from DISH’s satellite service. These were subsequently retransmitted without authorization on the SETTV streaming service. Last November, DISH’s lawsuit came to an end, with SETTV’s operators ordered by a Florida court to pay a settlement of $90 million in statutory damages. However, the fight against similar – if not identical services – was not over. In March 2019, DISH and NagraStar filed another lawsuit in Florida, this time targeting several individuals and companies collectively doing business as Simply-TV, a $20 per month service which several users have described as having many similarities to SETTV. “Defendants created a pirate streaming television service they have branded ‘Simply-TV’. Defendants sell Device Codes and Android TV Boxes designed to enable access to the Simply-TV pirate streaming service, which includes numerous television channels that were received without authorization from DISH’s satellite service and were subsequently retransmitted without authorization on the Simply-TV pirate streaming service,” the complaint reads. DISH goes on to suggest that the business model cascades down, with Simply-TV’s operators working together with people who receive the company’s channels without permission and Simply-TV re-selling service to others. A so-called “Master Reseller Program” allowed resellers to resell the service, complete with their own branding and pricing structure. DISH’s claims against those allegedly behind Simply-TV are made under the Federal Communications Act, specifically 47 U.S.C. § 605(a) and 47 U.S.C. § 605(e)(4) which relate to illegal reception/retransmission and selling devices which facilitate access to DISH’s satellite programming. While Simply-TV disappeared earlier this year, DISH requested a permanent injunction against the service and the supply of infringing devices. In addition to considerable damages, DISH also asked permission to take possession of and destroy all “devices, subscriptions, applications, and device codes, as well as all streaming devices, technologies, tools, software, products, components, or parts thereof” related to the service. On March 20, 2019, the court issued a temporary restraining order but following a no-show by the defendants at an April 4, 2019 hearing, the court converted that order to a comprehensive preliminary injunction which not only covered Simply-TV, but all those in “active concert or participation with them” including affiliates and resellers. At the end of May the alleged operators of Simply-TV, named as Peter Liberatore and Brandon Wells, filed a response to the DISH complaint. The pair, who are representing themselves, admitted that subscriptions to Simply-TV were sold through various websites. They also admitted that some of the content provided by Simply-TV originated from DISH and acknowledged that the service had not obtained “explicit authorization” from the broadcast provider. It was further admitted that Droid Technology LLC, a company allegedly founded by “some or all” of the defendants according to DISH, provided tools for consuming Simply-TV on various devices. It was also accepted that Droid used the previously-mentioned affiliate programs to attract business to Simply-TV. How the case will progress from here is open to interpretation but if the SETTV judgment is any barometer, things could start to get pretty expensive. The complaint can be viewed here, preliminary injunction here, response here (pdf) 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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