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Saturday, November 2nd, 2019

    Time Event
    1:31p
    ‘Pirate’ IPTV Reseller Boom Media Sued in the United States

    Selling ‘pirate’ IPTV packages and subscriptions to the public is a growing market, with the obvious potential to end badly for anyone involved.

    With that in mind, there’s a growing trend for so-called IPTV resellers to be extremely open about their activities, utilizing highly active social media accounts and particularly YouTube channels, where they promote their services, describe them as illegal, and then have their own faces front and center.

    For Boom Media, a prominent reseller of various ‘pirate’ IPTV services, this business model has attracted the wrong type of attention. The company, which trades as Boom Media LLC in North Carolina, is now being sued by DISH Network and NagraStar for illegally offering their content to the public.

    Alongside the LLC, John Henderson of New York and Debra Henderson of North Carolina are also named as defendants.

    The lawsuit, filed in a New York district court, states that Boom Media is run from John’s home and he is the sole member of the company. Together with his mother, Debra, it’s alleged they sell “access codes” (a common term used in DISH lawsuits to reference IPTV subscriptions) which are designed to enable subscribers to illegally receive DISH programming via the Internet.

    “The codes are designed and produced to enable a set-top box or other Internet-enabled device to access servers used to transmit DISH programming to customers of the MFG TV, Beast TV, Nitro TV, Murica Streams, Epic IPTV, Vader Streams and OK2 services,” the complaint reads.

    Noting that Vader Streams and OK2 are no longer on offer from Boom Media (likely due to the former being shut down by ACE earlier this year), the lawsuit notes that the defendants also promote their service to access channels such as HBO and Showtime, plus PPV events associated with UFC, WWE, and various boxing promotions.

    In common with similar suits filed recently, DISH says it was able to determine that the channels were sourced from its service due to watermarks embedded in its broadcasts. These were then resold from the above-listed IPTV suppliers by Boom Media, which charged customers between $10 and $20 per month with an option to buy a “pre-loaded” set-top box for $150.

    While DISH points the finger firmly at John Henderson for the running of Boom Media, the broadcaster claims that it is his mother, Debra, who receives payment from Boom’s customers.

    Image from the complaint

    As previously mentioned, Boom Media has a YouTube channel which it uses to promote the various packages it sells. This hasn’t gone unnoticed by DISH, which highlights some of the language used by Boom Media in its videos.

    “In a video posted to the Boom Media YouTube channel, Defendant John Henderson informed customers that “[y]ou guys are buying pirated streams, this shit is not Hulu, it’s not Netflix, it’s pirated f**cking streams. It’s no different than buying f**king knockoff shoes. It’s black market shit,” DISH writes in its complaint.

    In common with other similar lawsuits, DISH hasn’t gone down the copyright infringement route with this action, instead opting for willful violations of the Federal Communications Act.

    The company demands a permanent injunction to prevent the ongoing behavior and seizure of all devices and equipment used to facilitate the violations. It also wants to seize the Boommedia.org domain name (and any others involved in the scheme) plus “all hard copy and electronic records” regarding persons involved in the entire “Rebroadcasting Scheme”.

    At this stage it’s difficult to put a figure on the final amount DISH will demand in damages but even hundreds of thousands of dollars could be a conservative estimate.

    The full complaint can be found 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.

    7:17p
    ‘Demonoid’ Moves Away From .to Domain to Distance Itself From Scam Site

    For many old-school torrent users, Demonoid is a familiar name. The site was founded sixteen years ago, which made it one of the oldest BitTorrent sites around.

    However, last year things changed when Deimos, the site’s founder, went missing. After months of uncertainty and downtime, it became clear that the site wasn’t coming back this time. Deimos is believed to have passed away in a tragic accident, marking the end of an era.

    As time went on it became obvious that Demonoid would not return in its original state. However, many of the site’s staffers and users were eager to build a new home. Not so much to replace the old Demonoid, but more as a tribute, and to keep the name alive.

    This vision came to fruition a few months ago when Dnoid.to, a Demonoid successor, was launched. The new site has the same look and feel as the old site, but started over with a completely new user database.

    The new site doesn’t operate a tracker either. Instead, the most important goal of the site was to bring the old community back together.

    “Demonoid always had a special spot in people’s hearts. Keeping a memento of it without letting others ruin it by making copycats and phishing sites from it is our way of saying ‘thank you’ to him and keeping his legacy alive,” Demonoid staffer ‘phaze1G’  told us at the time.

    In the weeks that followed the site’s new userbase slowly started to grow but it also became apparent that the domain name choice was far from ideal.

    The .to domain is also used by another site, Demonoid.to, which is a well-known scam site. Instead of offering torrents, Demonoid.to urges people to download a binary client. The client download URL redirects to an affiliate link for a paid Usenet service.

    Demonoid scam

    Because of the dnoid.to / demonoid.to confusion, many users ended up at the wrong site. According to phaze1G, more than 800 emails with complaints about this issue were received in recent weeks.

    This volume wasn’t something the staff could ignore. As such, the team registered a new domain name, Demonoid.is, which is the new home from now on. For the time being, visitors to the old domain will be automatically redirected.

    “The Tonic registry is not as reliable as it used to be with their redacted whois. They are handing over owner details, even following DMCA complaints, as we were told by some people from other sites,” phaze1G says.

    Indeed, as we have covered previously, the Tonic registry does comply with DMCA subpoenas from US Courts, but that’s something it has always done. The change here may be that DMCA subpoenas are more often used as an enforcement tool nowadays.

    With the fresh domain name, the ‘new’ Demonoid hopes to avoid any confusion and other domain troubles. Meanwhile, it will continue to keep the site going, something that went relatively well over the past weeks.

    “The site itself is doing fine. It’s not oversaturated, which is our goal. Many former users returned and lots of newcomers are stopping by too,” phaze1G notes.

    “We are trying to keep a moderated size of visitors, so the infrastructure doesn’t include more cost as the revenue from ads is not enough to cover the costs itself,” he adds.

    While Demonoid remains a big name that for many is surrounded by nostalgia, it’s a small player in the larger ecosystem today. With roughly half a million monthly visits, according to SimilarWeb, it pales in comparison to the larger torrent sites.

    Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and more. We also have VPN reviews, discounts, offers and coupons.

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