The novel coronavirus pandemic sweeping the globe is leading to a number of never-before-seen situations. As millions of Britons have been told to work from home and avoid pubs, bars, restaurants, cinemas and theatres, experts have warned about the UK’s broadband infrastructure not being able to cope. Certainly, Microsoft Teams has struggled with demand.
To capitalise on the vast number of people practising social-distancing to desperately try to stop the spread of COVID-19, illegal streaming app Popcorn Time – dubbed “Free Netflix” when it first launched back in 2014 – has re-emerged online. And Netflix has seen such immense demand that the service is limiting the quality of streams in Europe for 30 days.
Not only that, but pirate resources have seen a huge uptick in web traffic from Italy, where people are living under much stricter restrictions than those in the UK and the United States.
The government-ordered lockdown has had an immense impact on streaming in Italy, piracy-focused blog TorrentFreak has reported. According to data gathered by Cloudflare, traffic to its northern Italy node has spiked more than 30 percent compared to earlier this year.
While part of this increase is due to people working from home, collaborating on documents, making video calls, and consuming news – there is also a spike in video streaming.
Pirate streaming options in Italy have seen dramatically increased demand as people look to fill their time during the day and the evenings. Searches for popular local sites, like Guardaserie, Filmpertutti, Altadefinizione, CB01, and Eurostreaming, have skyrocketed in the last few days of the lockdown, TorrentFreak reports. All of these sites are among the top pirate repositories in the country, where local sites traditionally overshadow international ones, like The Pirate Bay, KickAss Torrents, and others.
Another popular pirate option, known as Real-Debrid, was forced to install a new server to keep up with the increased demand.
Writing to fans on Twitter, the illicit streaming option stated: “Coronavirus has an impact on the traffic we have on our service but also peering capabilities of many ISPs, we had a traffic spike yesterday night (new record), we expect to get this amount of traffic for quite some time but, for now, we still have enough capabilities.”
Within a few hours of installing the new server, the service reported another 20 percent boost in traffic. And it’s not just the sheer amount of demand. The coronavirus pandemic has changed the type of content that people want to watch too.
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Contagion – the 2011 thriller about the spread of an unknown virus across the world by Steven Soderbergh starring Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, and Gwyneth Paltrow – has seen an unprecedented surge in demand following the COVID-19 pandemic. The film isn’t available on any streaming service, but is available to purchase or rent from iTunes, Prime Video, and Sky Store.
To keep up with demand, popular torrent release group YTS has launched two new rips of Contagion, which have already been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times – making them one of the most downloaded films within the last week, according to data gathered by TorrentFreak.
Torrents themselves aren’t illegal – these small files are simply a way of downloading content from a network of users across the world who already have the file and are willing to share. Torrents are the map that plans out which bytes you’ll be able to download from each person in the network.
If you’re sharing your own photo collection on torrents: that’s fine since you own the copyright. However, peer-to-peer networks and torrents have become synonymous with downloading copyright-protected material, including television shows from paid-for networks, like Sky Atlantic or Netflix, as well as Hollywood blockbusters.
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Kieron Sharp, CEO of FACT said “During these exceptional circumstances, it is completely understandable that the demand for content will increase.
“However, it is essential to remember that the only legal way of watching content is through the official providers. If you are accessing content in any way that does not remunerate the content provider, this is not a grey area: it is illegal.
“There is now more choice than ever for consumers and we encourage everyone to watch only via official providers as this does not only guarantee the best quality viewing, it guarantees that you’re not putting yourself and your family at risk of malware, inappropriate content and electrical safety risks.
“FACT will continue to monitor and will work with members and industry to crackdown on illegal activity.”
Despite a common misconception, there is no difference in the eyes of the law whether you’re streaming or downloading the content. If you’re accessing paid-for material for free without permission from the rightsholder – it’s illegal.
If you’re self-isolating at home twiddling your thumbs, video on-demand services like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, NOW TV, Apple TV+, and (from next week) Disney+ should provide more than enough binge-able boxsets to keep you occupied without breaking the law.
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