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Title: Football and Other Premium TV Being Pirated At 'Industrial Scale'

Link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/25/05/31/00292...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: A lack of action by big
tech firms is enabling the "industrial scale theft" of premium video
services, especially live sport, a new report says. The research by Enders
Analysis accuses Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft of "ambivalence and
inertia" over a problem it says costs broadcasters revenue and puts users at
an increased risk of cyber-crime. Gareth Sutcliffe and Ollie Meir, who
authored the research, described the Amazon Fire Stick -- which they argue is
the device many people use to access illegal streams -- as "a piracy
enabler." [...] The device plugs into TVs and gives the viewer thousands of
options to watch programs from legitimate services including the BBC iPlayer
and Netflix. They are also being used to access illegal streams, particularly
of live sport. In November last year, a Liverpool man who sold Fire Stick
devices he reconfigured to allow people to illegally stream Premier League
football matches was jailed. After uploading the unauthorized services on the
Amazon product, he advertised them on Facebook. Another man from Liverpool
was given a two-year suspended sentence last year after modifying fire sticks
and selling them on Facebook and WhatsApp. According to data for the first
quarter of this year, provided to Enders by Sky, 59% of people in UK who said
they had watched pirated material in the last year while using a physical
device said they had used a Amazon fire product. The Enders report says the
fire stick enables "billions of dollars in piracy" overall. [...] The
researchers also pointed to the role played by the "continued depreciation"
of Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems, particularly those from Google
and Microsoft. This technology enables high quality streaming of premium
content to devices. Two of the big players are Microsoft's PlayReady and
Google's Widevine. The authors argue the architecture of the DRM is largely
unchanged, and due to a lack of maintenance by the big tech companies,
PlayReady and Widevine "are now compromised across various security levels."
Mr Sutcliffe and Mr Meir said this has had "a seismic impact across the
industry, and ultimately given piracy the upper hand by enabling theft of the
highest quality content." They added: "Over twenty years since launch, the
DRM solutions provided by Google and Microsoft are in steep decline. A
complete overhaul of the technology architecture, licensing, and support
model is needed. Lack of engagement with content owners indicates this a low
priority."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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