Dynamic Pirate Site Blocking Injunctions and the Transparency Illusion
Will the United States introduce a pirate site blocking program? Depending on who one asks, the answer could go either way. A slightly different and potentially more complex question isn’t whether the United States will adopt such a program, but whether it should. Is limiting communications absolutely necessary and the only option left? Is it still absolutely necessary after considering how quickly the UK is descending into...
U.S. Government’s Focus on Sports Piracy Puts Spotlight on Streameast Saga
Sports piracy made headlines this week when anti-piracy coalition ACE announced the shutdown of the world’s largest illegal sports streaming ring. The operation, carried out by Egyptian authorities at the end of August, resulted in two arrests and the seizure of roughly 80 domain names. A website carrying the ‘Streameast’ brand was one of the main targets. This was indeed one of the larger pirate sports streaming portals. However,...
Behind the Curtain: The Three-Year Journey to the Block BEARD Site Blocking Act
During the first half of 2022, U.S. Senator Thom Tillis was working on a proposal to put forward in a new pirate site blocking bill. The text of the No-Fault Copyright Remedy Act (NFCRA) was shared among stakeholders but wasn’t announced to the public. A decade had passed since the first attempt to introduce site-blocking legislation backfired in 2012. For NFCRA, copyright holders and Internet service providers were brought on board...
Threat Intelligence Researchers “Uncover a Massive Pirate IPTV Operation”
Research and investigations concerning internet platforms can be incredibly time-consuming, despite most of the necessary tools being readily available to the public free of charge. Threat intelligence platform Silent Push combines the essence of these tools into a graphical interface that does much more than the sum of its parts. Historical data, for example, allows connections to be built in cases where evidence no longer exists on...
ACE Shuts Down Giant ‘Streameast’ Piracy Ring, But the Original Survives
Last year, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) seized several domain names linked to Streameast, a popular live sports piracy site with millions of users. The seizures were carried out by the book but did not achieve the desired effect. Streameast remained available through alternative and regularly updated domains. At the time, the operator of the original Streameast operation, known by the handle ‘Quick’, noted that many...
LaLiga Touts ‘Historic’ IPTV Piracy Crackdown, Key Questions Remain Unanswered
Anti-piracy action in Argentina continues to expand, with tight collaboration between the Spanish football league LaLiga and local authorities. Following raids in Argentina targeting MagisTV and Al Ángulo TV, new information reveals that a global network was taken down recently. LaLiga says the historic enforcement action dismantled dozens of IPTV services with an estimated 8 million paid subscribers. Following an investigation by the...
