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DISH & Sling Sue Pirate Sites For Circumventing Sports Stream DRMAndy Maxwell, 31 Jul 10:41 PM In the United States, broadcaster DISH Network has fi

DISH & Sling Sue Pirate Sites For Circumventing Sports Stream DRM Andy Maxwell, 31 Jul 10:41 PM In the United States, broadcaster DISH Network has filed dozens of lawsuits targeting the operators of numerous streaming platforms, usually based on relatively straightforward violations of either the Copyright Act or the Federal Communications Act. A new lawsuit filed this month based on the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA addresses the same problem from an interesting angle. Lawsuit Targets Four 'SportsBay' Sites Filed in a Texas court, the lawsuit lists DISH Network and subsidiary Sling TV as plaintiffs. It targets four Doe defendants doing business as SportsBay.org, SportsBay.tv, Live-NBA.stream, and Freefeds.com. The SportsBay domains currently link to the same web platform, which features artwork culled from the infamous Pirate Bay, although there appears to be no link to that site, branding aside. All of the domains (collectively the 'SportsBay' sites) appear to be in the business of offering sports broadcasts including the Olympics, NBA matches, NFL games, cricket and motorsports. SportsBay.org appears to be the most popular with an estimated 9.35m visitors per month. "Defendants operate an illicit streaming service through the Sportsbay Websites, whereby Defendants offer Sportsbay users free access to Sling's internet transmissions of television programming by providing the means to decrypt and acquire it without authorization," the complaint reads. DRM Technologies Protect Sling's Platform According to the lawsuit, Sling's programming is protected by various types of Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies including Widevine, Fairplay, and PlayReady. "Each DRM has a key-based encryption and decryption process used to make Sling Programming accessible to only authorized Sling subscribers that purchased access to that Sling Programming and restricts unauthorized access to, copying, and retransmission of Sling Programming," the companies note. However, it's alleged that the operators of the SportsBay sites are able to circumvent the DRM technologies deployed by Sling in order to provide their users with Sling programming, from the company's servers, for free. The offer includes the channels listed below. The complaint alleges that when a channel is selected on either of the SportsBay domains, the sites connect to the Feedfeds.com site and embed content from there in an iFrame. That iFrame then accesses programming from an official Sling server located at Movetv.com and delivers it to the iFrame. "The Freefeds.com iframe then connects to Defendants' Live-nba.stream computer server in order to obtain the DRM keys necessary to decrypt the Sling Programming so that it is displayed on the Sportsbay.org and Sportsbay.tv websites," the companies add. Anti-Circumvention Provisions of the DMCA DISH and Sling say that the SportsBay sites obtain the DRM keys necessary to decrypt Sling programming without permission. As a result they commit offenses under the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA. "Defendants willfully violated 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)(A) for the purpose of commercial advantage and private financial gain. Defendants knew or should have known that their actions are illegal and prohibited," the complaint notes. In addition, DISH and Sling allege that the defendants have "manufactured, imported, offered to the public, provided, and otherwise trafficked in technologies and services" in violation of 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(2). This section relates to technologies that are primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure controlling access to a copyrighted work and have only limited commercially significant purpose other than to circumvent a technological measure. Demands For Relief DISH and Sling are asking the court for a permanent injunction restraining the defendants from circumventing any DRM technology protecting Sling programming and offering the same to the public. They also want the court to issue an order that enables the takeover of the SportsBay domains plus statutory damages of up to $2,500 for each violation of 17 U.S.C. §§ 1201(a)(1)(A) and 1201(a)(2). Given that the plaintiffs say that the defendants are liable for these violations for each user of their sites, damages could easily hit tens of millions of dollars, even if just one month of traffic is considered. The DISH and Sling lawsuit can be found here (pdf) From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. Tokyo Olympics Opening Ceremony is The First Mainstream 8K Rip on Pirate Sites Ernesto Van der Sar, 31 Jul 01:25 PM Attracting billions of eyeballs from all over the world, the Summer Olympics is the most watched sporting event. While sports achievements are the main focus, the opening ceremony attracts one of the biggest audiences. This was no different last Friday when the Tokyo 2020 officially opened. In the past, we also noticed a massive interest in the Olympics on various pirate sites. In 2008, the opening ceremony of the 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing was downloaded millions of times through torrent sites, for example. Four years later, The Pirate Bay joined in when the site renamed itself the "Olympic Bay," providing users with a direct link to newly uploaded torrents for the London 2012 games. For the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, we haven't noticed much activity on torrent sites. The opening ceremony and the sporting events are pirated on streaming sites, however, especially when cheap legal alternatives are lacking. Despite the lacking Olympic torrents buzz, there's still a major milestone to report. A few days after the Olympics got started, an 8K HLG rip of the opening ceremony with 22.2 surround sound started circulating on a private torrent site. To our knowledge, this is the first time that a mainstream broadcast has been ripped in this quality. The release comes from the group TrollUHD, which is known for its high-resolution releases. The full ceremony is 135 Gigabytes in size, which means that it will take a while to download. The source of the file is not mentioned, but the HLG format and the 22.2 audio matches up with the broadcast specs from Japan's public broadcaster NHK. Other countries have 8K broadcasts as well, but without the 22.2 audio. It's only fitting that NHK's broadcast is the first 8K mainstream release to get pirated. The Japanese company was the first to start working on 8K video in 1995, which was codenamed 'Super Hi-Vision' at the time. NHK Science & Technology Research Laboratories also developed 22.2 surround sound. While the first pirated 8K release is a milestone, the intended audience is rather small. Downloading the file – which requires access to a private community – is only the first hurdle. Most people simply don't have the hardware to support playback of these types of video and audio. This challenge is also reflected in the comments from downloaders, where many people indicated that they struggled to get it to work. Over the past few days, the International Olympic Committee worked hard to take down and block pirated content. This is in line with earlier comments, where the organization said that it's extremely concerned with piracy. But given the small audience, we don't think that 8K worries them too much now. — A copy of the NFO file for the "Summer Olympics Tokyo 2020 S01E01 Opening Ceremony 4320p HLG UHDTV AAC22 2 HEVC-TrollUHD" release can be found here From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more. ©2021 TorrentFreak | Office 21338 PO Box 4336 Manchester, North West M61 0BW United Kingdom Web Version   Preferences   Forward   Unsubscribe     Powered by Mad Mimi®A GoDaddy® company