Month: June 2023

Pirate Movie Supplier Quits After Russian Pirates Cammed its Pirate Releases

There are fears that Russia’s black-market supply of unlicensed Hollywood movies could soon dry up. Cinema insiders say Kazakhstan-based company ‘WesternRus” had been supplying keys to cinema chains to unlock localized mainstream movies. Announcing an indefinite suspension of its activities, WesternRus cited “high levels of piracy” as the main reason for throwing in the towel.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

stupidtv-lStraight answers in response to straight questions is far from the default position in Hollywood where piracy is concerned. The topic is always controversial, and most of the interesting questions have answers that have the potential to make it even more so.

Whether the details will ever see the light of day is unclear, but the discussions that led to Hollywood ending theatrical releases in Russia in response to the invasion of Ukraine must’ve been fascinating.

Corporations are rarely considered worthy recipients of sympathy votes, but tearing down a patiently-built market that had overcome many piracy challenges over the previous decade won’t have been easy, even if it was necessary.

Can’t Buy It Legally? Someone Will Sell It Illegally

The developing legal content market in Russia has always faced stiff competition from pirates. Improvement in content availability gave consumers choice beyond the ‘piracy’ default, but with no new Hollywood content available to buy, there was never any doubt that pirates would attempt to pick up the slack.

That some Russian cinemas were able to screen major Hollywood movies in perfect quality still came as a surprise. By December 2022, alongside the screenings of Avatar: The Way of Water, people spoke of major movies being supplied complete with Russian dubbing by sources in Kazakhstan.

While welcomed by Russian movie fans, these releases faced inevitable and immediate competition from pirates. A high-quality telesync copy of Avatar 2, presumably recorded from an unlicensed screening in Russia, was among other titles that exploited the growing theatrical pirate market in Russia, or at least for as long as it lasted.

WesternRus: Russia’s Hollywood Movie Supplier

After being referenced in the media regularly but rarely by name, last week an announcement made by Kazakhstan-based company ‘WesternRus’ leaked from its private Telegram channel and into the hands of journalists. Cinema industry publication ProfiCinema identified WesternRus as the main supplier of Western movies to Russian theaters.

ProfiCinema said that WesternRus had been supplying new Hollywood releases that had already undergone localization. Transactions took place on WesternRus’ Telegram channel, where the company would hand out keys to theatrical distributors for use in cinemas for a limited number of days.

“The cost of such keys averaged 100 thousand rubles during the ‘premiere’ period. From week to week, the price proportionally decreased depending on the relevance and freshness of the content,” ProfiCinema revealed.

It appears that price-cutting and piracy quickly took their toll on a collapsing market.

WesternRus: Too Much Piracy, We’re done

In a message posted to its Telegram account obtained by ProfiCinema, last week WesternRus announced the end of its theatrical venture.

“We are suspending the release of all previously announced releases,” WesternRus’ message reads. According to the company, the main reason for closing down is that too many groups are illegally recording (camming) ‘WesternRus’ releases and distributing them online. The company says that the main culprits are domestic cinema chains and other third-party companies.

“An anonymous source in the cinema community confirmed that the struggle of pirates for the ‘treasure island’ – the Russian film market – has been going on for more than one month. In particular, the domestic dubbing studio Red Head Sound was in serious competition with the Kazakh company, and their first step was dumping. WesternRus supported this game by offering a flexible system of discounts for regular customers, but, nevertheless, could not stand it,” ProfiCinema reports.

With little to no new Western content being made available in Russia legally, demand for pristine copies of movies is only likely to increase. Whether WesternRus will reemerge as a supplier is unknown.

At least for now, it appears that despite having zero production costs, WesternRus cannot make piracy pay because too many pirates give content away for free. It’s a claim as old as piracy itself.

Image credit: Pixabay/Conmongt

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Thömus Twinner T1 Pro: E-Bike für bis zu 15.000 Euro

Thömus hat mit dem Twinner T1 Pro ein S-Pedelec vorgestellt, das einen Carbonrahmen hat, bis zu 45 km/h fährt und bis zu 15.000 Euro kosten kann. (E-Bike, Smart Bike)

Thömus hat mit dem Twinner T1 Pro ein S-Pedelec vorgestellt, das einen Carbonrahmen hat, bis zu 45 km/h fährt und bis zu 15.000 Euro kosten kann. (E-Bike, Smart Bike)

Anti-Piracy Group Signals Opportunities to Tackle Online Piracy Apps

A recent publication by the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance signals app piracy as a growing problem that has room for improvement. Rightsholders could collaborate more intensely with app stores, for example. Meanwhile, app platforms could implement know-your-customer verification, while deploying automated tools to scan for and filter apps that use known pirate keywords.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

appOver the past decade, mobile applications have become the standard platform for most people to consume content online.

Whether it’s for shopping, news, or entertainment, there is an app available for any type of content.

This shift in consumption patterns is not limited to legal content; movie and TV piracy has gone mobile as well. In some cases, these pirate streaming apps can be found in official app stores, reaching an audience of millions of users.

The App Piracy Problem

Copyright holders are not happy with these ‘unauthorized’ apps, which are big business. In a recent publication by the Audiovisual Anti-Piracy Alliance (AAPA), NOS‘ Head of Content Protection Pedro Bravo provides a detailed overview of the problem.

App piracy includes legitimate apps that are copied but we reserve our reporting to those that are advertised as a gateway to pirated content or live streams. While these apps lure users with free stuff, they don’t necessarily offer pirated content.

The ultimate goal of the developers is the same though. They want to convert users into a revenue stream, one way or another. Some apps may monetize user data, for example, but for the vast majority advertising is the income stream of choice.

Stealing Ad Dollars

That can be quite a lucrative business model and poses yet another problem for legitimate content creators. In addition to ‘stealing’ content, these pirate apps ‘steal’ their potential advertising revenue too.

“Ad words campaigns are the most lucrative for Pirates. Yes, not only are rights holders losing money from the lack of legitimate App downloads, but Pirates steal what should be their ad revenue as well,” Bravo notes.

In the past, some pirate sites and services have embraced the Robin Hood image, in the sense that they distribute content from wealthy corporations to the public at large. However, the AAPA piece notes that it is naïve to think that pirates are well-intended folk heroes.

“[Pirates] are not charities, handing out access to content to ease the economic pressures. Quite the opposite. Pirates are in it for the money. They are often large, international organizations spread across different jurisdictions, with IT infrastructure and sizeable resources.”

Free and Unlimited

123 app

This sentiment is not new. While pirate sites and services exist in all shapes and forms, these operations have to make money; they wouldn’t survive otherwise. And for many shady piracy operations, money is the main driver, which can come at the expense of privacy or security.

How to Tackle Piracy Apps

The big question is how piracy apps can be tackled. Here, the AAPA article lists some concrete suggestions, starting with closer cooperation between rightsholders and the operators of app stores, such as Apple and Google.

These platforms already remove copyright-infringing apps if they’re reported but rightsholders say they could be more proactive, sharing research and information that can help to detect apps early on. For example, by pointing out known identifiers such as pirate logos and names, so associated apps can be recognized more easily.

This implies that app stores should do more than simply respond to takedown notices. On this front, Bravo suggests that it’s key to ensure that piracy apps don’t simply resurface. Verifying the identities of app publishers could be a good start.

“From an App Store perspective, implementing a robust process around the Digital Services Act ‘Know Your Business Customer’ could eliminate a lot of Pirate organizations slipping through.”

App stores could also collaborate with “trusted flaggers” to set up faster and more streamlined removal procedures while ensuring that repeat infringers are permanently banned.

Finally, proactive filtering might also go a long way to address app piracy. While hash filtering isn’t suited for unique apps, Apple and Google could use automated detection tools to flag piracy-related keywords, to spot potentially problematic content.

“Another way for App stores to remove Pirate Apps could be to leverage automatic detection, using defined keywords, such as Free IPTV or Free football, to highlight the illegal Apps quickly,” Bravo writes in his AAPA piece.

All in all, Bravo calls for more collaboration between stakeholders. That includes rightsholders, who can bundle their knowledge, but app stores also have a crucial role in solving the piracy puzzle.

From: TF, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Review: The Flash isn’t a terrible film—just a forgettable one

There’s nothing here we haven’t seen many, many times before—and frankly done better.

Ezra Miller as Barry/The Flash

Enlarge / Ezra Miller as Barry/The Flash unwittingly screws up the multiverse in The Flash. (credit: YouTube/Warner Bros.)

In the months leading up to the much-delayed theatrical release of The Flash—the 13th and penultimate film in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU)—new DC co-head James Gunn publicly said that he thought it was one of the best superhero movies he'd ever seen. That and a series of fun, action-packed trailers helped counter the negative press surrounding a series of controversies involving the film's troubled star, Ezra Miller. Now the film is out, and our verdict is in. The Flash is—fine. It's basically your run-of-the-mill entertaining superhero romp with plenty of action, humor, and a solid emotional core, and Miller delivers a strong dual performance,

But it's not likely to crack many people's top-ten list of superhero movies. The film is a bit overlong and the quality of the special effects is uneven, especially in the rather messy climactic battle. The biggest issue is its lack of originality in a popular culture that has become steeped in superhero movies—and all the associated tropes—to the point of saturation. Director Andy Muschetti has done a perfectly respectable job at the helm, but there's just nothing here we haven't seen many, many times before (and frankly done better to boot), and he never really puts his own stamp on those well-known tropes.

(Spoilers below, but no major reveals until the last section. We'll give you a heads-up when we get there.)

Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Review: The Flash isn’t a terrible film—just a forgettable one

There’s nothing here we haven’t seen many, many times before—and frankly done better.

Ezra Miller as Barry/The Flash

Enlarge / Ezra Miller as Barry/The Flash unwittingly screws up the multiverse in The Flash. (credit: YouTube/Warner Bros.)

In the months leading up to the much-delayed theatrical release of The Flash—the 13th and penultimate film in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU)—new DC co-head James Gunn publicly said that he thought it was one of the best superhero movies he'd ever seen. That and a series of fun, action-packed trailers helped counter the negative press surrounding a series of controversies involving the film's troubled star, Ezra Miller. Now the film is out, and our verdict is in. The Flash is—fine. It's basically your run-of-the-mill entertaining superhero romp with plenty of action, humor, and a solid emotional core, and Miller delivers a strong dual performance,

But it's not likely to crack many people's top-ten list of superhero movies. The film is a bit overlong and the quality of the special effects is uneven, especially in the rather messy climactic battle. The biggest issue is its lack of originality in a popular culture that has become steeped in superhero movies—and all the associated tropes—to the point of saturation. Director Andy Muschetti has done a perfectly respectable job at the helm, but there's just nothing here we haven't seen many, many times before (and frankly done better to boot), and he never really puts his own stamp on those well-known tropes.

(Spoilers below, but no major reveals until the last section. We'll give you a heads-up when we get there.)

Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Lilbits: Handhelds, smartphones, and retro computers

A couple of unusual computers showed up on AliExpress last month: the Book 8088 is a mini-laptop with an Intel 8088 chip and support for MS-DOS and early versions of Windows, while the Hand 386 is a handheld computer with a QWERTY keyboard, a 386sx-co…

A couple of unusual computers showed up on AliExpress last month: the Book 8088 is a mini-laptop with an Intel 8088 chip and support for MS-DOS and early versions of Windows, while the Hand 386 is a handheld computer with a QWERTY keyboard, a 386sx-compatible processor and support for operating systems up to Windows 95. […]

The post Lilbits: Handhelds, smartphones, and retro computers appeared first on Liliputing.

Anbernic’s next handheld gaming PC could have a Ryzen 7 7840U chip (Anbernic Win701)

Anbernic is a Chinese company that produces handheld game consoles. Up until recently most have been Android or Linux-powered systems designed for retro gaming. But last year the company launched the Anbernic Win600, a relatively low-cost entry in the…

Anbernic is a Chinese company that produces handheld game consoles. Up until recently most have been Android or Linux-powered systems designed for retro gaming. But last year the company launched the Anbernic Win600, a relatively low-cost entry in the growing handheld gaming PC space. Now the company is preparing to launch a new model called […]

The post Anbernic’s next handheld gaming PC could have a Ryzen 7 7840U chip (Anbernic Win701) appeared first on Liliputing.