ITV

Tag: pirate

  • MPA’s Ace cracks down on sports piracy mob in Vietnam

    MPA’s Ace cracks down on sports piracy mob in Vietnam

    MUMBAI: Now it’s the turn of the Motion Pictures Association (MPA’s) Alliance for Creativity & Entertainment (Ace) to bust  a piracy racket. The world’s leading anti-piracy coalition, announced the shutdown of a notorious live sports piracy ring based in Vietnam and viewed extensively throughout the world.

    Unbelievable, but true, the operation’s illicit sites logged 812 million visits over the past 12 months, making it one of the largest sports piracy rings in the world, and the largest sports piracy syndicates taken down by ACE to date. 

    The shuttered sites include  online sports piracy outlets such as bestsolaris[dot]com, streameast[dot]to; markkystreams[dot]com; crackstreams[dot]dev; and weakspell[dot]to.

    Through an intensive, global investigation, Ace identified and approached the sites’ Hanoi-based operators, who agreed to immediately transfer 138 domains to it.

    “The shutdown of this globally notorious live sports piracy ring is a huge victory in our campaign against the piracy of live sports programs and follows other recent successful actions by Ace and law enforcement in Vietnam,” said  MPA executive vice-president & chief content protection officer Larissa Knapp. “Ace’s live sports members face a unique threat when it comes to digital piracy, as live sports broadcasts lose substantial commercial value once the game ends. The takedown serves as a warning to piracy operators everywhere – including operators in live sports piracy – that Ace will identify and shut down their illegal operations.”

    Primarily targeting audiences in the US and Canada, the sites streamed sports events daily, including content from all the US sports leagues and global leagues of every category. The illicit operation affected all Ace  members, including ACE’s sports tier members beIN Sports, Canal+ and Dazn.

    “DAZN stands with Ace in the fight to eradicate piracy, which undermines the sports ecosystem at all levels,” said Dazn chief operating officer Ed McCarthy, “It is very pleasing that a criminal operation of this scale was taken down. Piracy often compromises the security of fans’ data, which is then used for illegal purposes, so the closure of this piracy ring has the added benefit that potential subscribers will be guided toward legitimate content providers like Dazn.”

  • EU nations cooperate to take down pirate global streaming service

    EU nations cooperate to take down pirate global streaming service

    MUMBAI: What does it take shut a global  illegal streaming service originating somewhere in Europe?

    Try this for size: The European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation  (Eurojust ). The European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol). The Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA). Italian, Croatian, Romanian, Swedish, Swiss, Dutch, Chinese  and the UK authorities.

    Quite a handful, right?

    Well, they all worked down together late November  to take down one of the world’s largest illegal streaming services, according to a  press release issued by Eurojust.  In a large-scale operation, over 100 searches were carried out against 102 suspects. Eleven suspects were arrested in Croatia.

    The suspects illegally distributed material from streaming services online, including films and series. They also pirated more than 2,500 television channels, mainly sports. The illegal service served more than 22 million users worldwide. They were able to make over Euros 250 million in illegal profits per month. The economic damages to the copyright holders of the material is estimated at Euro10 billion. 

    To evade authorities, the suspects allegedly used encrypted messaging services to communicate and false identities to register phone numbers, credit cards, server rentals and TV subscriptions.

    On 26 November, during an international operation, the servers hosting the illegal streaming were seized and shut down, disrupting the services.

    Collaboration between authorities was set up at Eurojust to effectively pull the plug on the illegal streamer. Coordination meetings at Eurojust’s headquarters allowed authorities from Italy, Croatia, the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK  to work together on the investigation and plan the operation to shut down the service and arrest the suspects. Europol supported the operation by deploying experts and analysing the available intelligence during the investigation phase. 

    The cooperation between the authorities culminated in a joint operation to take down the services on 26 November. The operation  involved over 270 officers from the Polizia Postale carrying out 89 property searches in 15 Italian regions. An additional 14 searches were conducted by law enforcement agencies abroad, including five addresses in the UK, and further searches and seizures in the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, France, Bulgaria, Germany and Croatia,  according to the AAPA.

    During  the searches in Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, Croatia, the UK  and China, over Euros 1.6 million in cryptocurrency and Euros 40,000 in cash was seized. Croatian police arrested 11 suspects. AAPA said that “the immediately seized proceeds represent only a fraction of an illegal business that is alleged to yield approximately Euros 3 billion per annum.”

    The operation was massive as can be ascertained from the results achieved:  102 suspects were identified  with the arrest of 11 people after searching 112 houses. 100 domains were blocked with 29 servers being taken away along with 27 different IPTV equipment and devices. During the searches 560 resellers names were discovered along with an assortment of drugs and weapons. 

    AAPA co-president Mark Mulready said: “We applaud the efforts of the Catania public prosecutor’s office, the Croatian state attorney office for suppression of corruption and organised crime, Europol, Eurojust, and all of the law enforcement agencies involved in these operations. The scale of these multi-jurisdictional law enforcement actions highlights the considerable challenge our industry faces when dealing with such sophisticated international pirate networks.

    “We are proud to have collaborated with our law enforcement partners to provide technical training and in-field support to assist them in successfully tackling the world’s largest pirate network.   We are very grateful to the AAPA members who supported this action day, including Premier League, Sky Group, Nagravision, Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL), beIN Sports, United Media, Friend MTS and Irdeto.  We will continue to closely collaborate with law enforcement agencies in Europe and beyond to enable them to successfully identify, investigate and prosecute large-scale cross-border pirate networks.”

    The authorities involved in the actions were:

    * Italy: Public Prosecution Office Catania
    * Croatia: The Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime 
    * Netherlands: Fiscal Information and Investigation Service; Public Prosecution Service Rotterdam 
    * Romania: Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism; Direction for Fighting Organized Crime – Cyber Crime Fighting Service
    * Sweden: National unit against organized crime at the Swedish Prosecution Authority; Swedish Police Authority
    * Switzerland: Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland; Federal Office of Police 
    * United Kingdom: City of London Police

  • Viacom18 gets favorable order on pirated IPL streams

    Viacom18 gets favorable order on pirated IPL streams

    MUMBAI: Viacom18 Media is cracking the whip on illegal streaming of the IPL matches online. It recently received a dynamic+injunction  order from the Delhi high court in its favour restraining six  pirated web sites from showing the most prized cricket tournament globally.

    When a company or an individual receives a dynamic+injunction, it allows it to protect copyrighted work as soon as it is created ensuring no irreparable loss to the authors and owners of the copyrighted work.

    The reason the order was given is because any delays in blocking the rogue signals could lead to severe losses for Viacom18 considering the short duration of the IPL matches.  

    The court directed Viacom18 to communicate the details of crooked websites  to the DoT and MeitY on a real time basis so that they can issue blocking orders as well as to the ISPs so that actions can be taken immediately. It also ordered domain name registrars to lock and suspend the pirating websites and disclose their complete details.

    The bench observed that the current VUCA world of the internet, calls for robust and effective legal remedies with courts being proactive in updating, adapting, and modifying their directions to address  challenges that crop up effectively

  • Tackling pirate radio could save Londoners ?1 million: Ofcom

    Tackling pirate radio could save Londoners ?1 million: Ofcom

    MUMBAI: A new approach to tackling pirate radio has eradicated the problem in one London borough, and could save up to ?1 million for Londoners by being rolled out across the capital.

     

    Pirate radio harms local communities and the critical communications used by the emergency services. Ofcom, which manages radio frequencies, is hosting a summit on 3 November to explore the new approach to tackling the problem.

     

    Pirate stations typically use high-rise buildings for their broadcasts, with illegal transmitters installed on rooftops or hidden in lift shafts. This damages residential properties owned by local authorities, disrupting residents’ lives and putting people at risk from falling equipment.

     

    Ofcom has been working in north London, one of the UK’s most affected areas, with housing body Homes for Haringey. In 2014, 19 pirate radio stations were illegally broadcasting in Haringey. By quickly removing their transmitters and regularly patrolling and securing rooftops, pirate radio has now been eradicated in the borough.

     

    As a result, Homes for Haringey has saved ?90,000 in enforcement and maintenance costs over the past year.

     

    On 3 November, Ofcom will be meeting with local authorities from across London to share the success of the Homes for Haringey partnership. If this collaborative and proactive approach is rolled out across the capital, local authorities stand to save an estimated total of ?1 million per year.

     

    Ofcom’s Spectrum Enforcement team head Clive Corrie said, “Illegal broadcasting harms local communities and risks lives by interfering with vital communications used by the emergency services and air traffic control. By working in partnership with local authorities, Ofcom is tackling this problem. We also strongly urge those broadcasting illegally to get involved with internet or community radio, a legitimate route on to the airwaves.”

     

    Homes for Haringey executive director of operations Astrid Kjellberg-Obst added, “Pirate radio stations damage people’s homes and can be extremely distressing to our residents. We’ve seen huge success in tackling the problem with the measures that we’ve introduced, removing all pirate radio stations from Haringey and saving the borough tens of thousands of pounds in the process. We will continue to work with Ofcom to keep Haringey pirate-free.”

     

    Harmful interference to emergency services

    Pirate radio causes interference to critical radio services, including those used by the emergency services and air traffic control.

     

    In 2014, the UK’s air traffic control service NATS has reported 55 cases of communications interference from pirate radio.

     

    Ofcom also receives reports each week from the emergency services and other, legitimate radio services of illegal interference. Ofcom has powers to seize illegal broadcasting equipment and prosecute those involved.