Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by chromas on Thursday August 09 2018, @05:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the you-wouldn't-download-a-bear dept.

P2P Piracy Is Alive and Growing, Research Suggests

While the rise of online streaming sites can't be denied, a new research report from anti-piracy outfit Irdeto shows that P2P remains very relevant. In fact, it's still the dominant piracy tool in many countries. Irdeto researched site traffic data provided by an unnamed web analytics partner. The sample covers web traffic to 962 piracy sites in 19 countries where P2P was most used. This makes it possible to see how P2P site visits compare to those of pirate streaming sites.

The data reveal that there are massive differences in the relative use of P2P versus streaming sites between countries. In Russia, for example, only 2% of the visits go to streaming sites, while the rest of the traffic goes to P2P portals. P2P also outperforms streaming in other countries such as Australia, the Netherlands, and India. This pattern is reversed in Germany, where 88% of all visits go to pirate streaming sites. Similarly, streaming is also the dominant web piracy tool in the United States, France, Spain and other countries.

Additional research in eight countries shows that piracy traffic has grown during the course of 2017. This growth also applies to P2P sites, in all but one country, Germany. Looking at the sample as a whole, Iredeto notes that 70% of all pirate traffic goes to P2P sites, which appears to run counter to the popular narrative that streaming is more dominant today.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Thursday August 09 2018, @06:45PM (8 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday August 09 2018, @06:45PM (#719534) Journal

    I just use a dedicated browser in privacy mode with Adblock Ultimate on it, and pick a site that works. Even if you did decide to fiddle with uMatrix, it would probably take 2-5 minutes to figure out what needs to be enabled/disabled (typically the worst and most useless ad/tracker domains are at the bottom of the list and can be ignored) and then it should work for months/years or until the streaming site [solarmoviez.ru] dies.

    Another option would be to use a dedicated sub-$100 TV box/stick with Kodi on it. Very easy to hook that up to a TV.

    Finally, if you do stick with a torrent client, you could try using one that supports "torrent streaming", where the initial parts of the file are downloaded first and the file can be played before it finishes downloading. I think one of the first clients to do that was uTorrent, with VLC for the incomplete file streaming. Something basic like Deluge doesn't support streaming, but WebTorrent [webtorrent.io] does (supports Linux and has a desktop/non-browser version according to the FAQ).

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 09 2018, @07:22PM (5 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday August 09 2018, @07:22PM (#719549) Homepage Journal

    I would never pirate copyrighted works or advocate their piracy! I am shocked—shocked—to find that gambling is going on in here!

    I do think it's interesting that kodi (formerly XBox Media Center or XBMC for short) is once again being developed for the XBox (One) after having dropped it as a build target long ago.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 09 2018, @08:03PM (3 children)

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday August 09 2018, @08:03PM (#719571) Journal

      It's a little surprising Microsoft allows it [microsoft.com]. Although it's not "fully loaded" with add-ons, I assume most users end up adding them (what's that, 30-60 minutes of work?).

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 09 2018, @08:20PM (2 children)

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday August 09 2018, @08:20PM (#719580) Homepage Journal

        I wouldn't think addons would be necessary if you had anything else on the network sharing some directories over NFS or SMB. Maybe if you just had to start watching something ASAFP instead of waiting on a torrent to finish.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 2) by takyon on Thursday August 09 2018, @10:07PM (1 child)

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Thursday August 09 2018, @10:07PM (#719650) Journal

          I don't think you understand how convenient "fully loaded" Kodi can be. The best add-ons present a Netflix-esque browsing interface, except without the artificial catalog limitations [engadget.com].

          I'll admit that it can have its bad moments (movies without any working stream sources, buffering issues, or lower quality stuff than you can torrent), but when it works, it works pretty well. There are also add-ons for stuff like live streaming TV.

          I don't have any Kodi box right now (gave it to a friend and I just watch stuff on laptop most of the time), but I would probably set it up again in 2020 or so when devices start shipping with AV1 [wikipedia.org] hardware decoding support. I want to future proof for streams/files that are smaller than H.265 encoded equivalents.

          --
          [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 09 2018, @10:57PM

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday August 09 2018, @10:57PM (#719667) Homepage Journal

            Depends on your priorities, I guess. I'd rather go do something else for a little while so a download of a much better than Internet streaming quality copy can forever sit upon a media server. That way I can watch it in good quality whenever I like from now on, stick it on a thumb drive, phone, or tablet, or watch it when the cable is out because a limb fell across a line somewhere.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 3, Funny) by Webweasel on Friday August 10 2018, @10:31AM

      by Webweasel (567) on Friday August 10 2018, @10:31AM (#719857) Homepage Journal

      Your winnings sir....

      --
      Priyom.org Number stations, Russian Military radio. "You are a bad, bad man. Do you have any other virtues?"-Runaway1956
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 10 2018, @01:54AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 10 2018, @01:54AM (#719735)

    What if I don't want to fucking stream, I want a copy of the warez to watch when I'm offline?

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Friday August 10 2018, @02:27AM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Friday August 10 2018, @02:27AM (#719748) Journal

      Torrent streaming still downloads the complete file(s) to your computer. If you don't want to watch it the moment you start downloading it, then you don't need to check any options that prioritize the initial parts and play it automatically.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]