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YouTube Has An Illegal TV Streaming Problem (mashable.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Mashable: Most people turn to Netflix to binge watch full seasons of a single TV show, but there could be a much cheaper way: YouTube. You might be surprised to learn that you can watch full episodes of popular TV shows on YouTube for free, thanks to a large number of rogue accounts that are hosting illegal live streams of shows. Perhaps the most shocking thing about these free (and very illegal) TV live streams might even make their way into your suggested video queue, if you watch enough "random shit" and Bobby Hill quote compilations on the site, as Mashable business editor Jason Abbruzzese recently experienced. He first noticed the surprisingly high number of illegal TV streaming accounts on his YouTube homepage, which has tailored recommended videos based on his viewing habits. Personalized recommendations aren't exactly new -- but the number of illegal live streams broadcasting copyrighted material on a loop was a shocker. When we looked deeper into the livestreams, the number we found was mindblowing. Many of these accounts appear to exist solely to give watchers an endless loop of their favorite shows and only have a few other posts related to the live streamed content. "YouTube respects the rights of copyright holders and we've invested heavily in copyright and content management tools to give rights holders control of their content on YouTube," a YouTube spokesperson told Mashable in an email. "When copyright holders work with us to provide reference files for their content, we ensure all live broadcasts are scanned for third party content, and we either pause or terminate streams when we find matches to third party content."

119 comments

  1. Problems like.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    bitches and money

    1. Re: Problems like.. by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Nah, I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one.

      (See? I'm hip and with it! That's a hippity hop reference, in line with today's youth!)

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    2. Re: Problems like.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hate to break it to you but that was like cool 20 years ago.

      But you still got all these fake mfkers showing fake love to you - straight up in your face. - that's modern.

  2. Very Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "(and very illegal)"

    What makes something very illegal compare to just plain old boring illegal?

    1. Re:Very Illegal? by NotInHere · · Score: 2

      Criminalized: illegal, but I don't want it to be illegal.
      Illegal: neutral term.
      Very illegal: illegal, and I want punishment to be worse.

    2. Re:Very Illegal? by jandrese · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It is that most heinous of crimes, theft of money.

      --

      I read the internet for the articles.
    3. Re:Very Illegal? by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 4, Funny

      Definitely I am afraid to leave my home due to all the tvshow pirates out there. I feel like every other person on the street is just waiting to walk up to me and watch GoT on their phones illegally. One day someone actually BUMPED INTO ME because he was too busy watching pirated tv shows on his phone! The world isn't safe.

    4. Re:Very Illegal? by dasgoober · · Score: 2

      It is that most heinous of crimes, theft of money.

      Even worse: the theft of money from someone with a lot of money.

    5. Re:Very Illegal? by ma1wrbu5tr · · Score: 1

      If I had mod points to spend, would definitely mark this as Funny. People will find a way to get what they want if you don't provide a way to sell it to them in a fashion they find acceptable. This is why I still have a VCR. Try content blocking that 1985 VCR that has no macrovision (or any other DRM) built in.

      --
      Why can't we go back to using jumpers to configure slot adapter cards? Why? I say!
    6. Re:Very Illegal? by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      Get a capture card with component inputs. At least you'll get 720.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    7. Re:Very Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good Question. I wouldn't have used Very Illegal for this!

    8. Re:Very Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The difference is a normal person would have just said it's "illegal". A douchebag shill with a vested interest would say "very illegal". A complete and utter worthless faggot douchebag shill with a vested interest would say "very illegal" and mention how it's illegal FOUR FUCKING TIMES.

      Brett Williams is a childish little shit. I'd smash his fucking face in ever I ever met him. Now THAT'S "very illegal".

    9. Re: Very Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's these neato burrito gamer DVRs that will ignore DRM on HDMI and record anything.

    10. Re: Very Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Get off his lawn!!!

      He said he has a mother fucking VCR, beeeotches.

      You'll have to pry the VHS tapes from his cold dead fingers.

    11. Re:Very Illegal? by jabuzz · · Score: 1

      Nope that would be killing a pregnant reigning monarch. That way you get regicide and infanticide all rolled into one. Well at least in the UK that's the most heinous crime you can commit. Opportunities to do so however have limited openings in history. Last opportunity closed 53 years ago with the birth of Prince Edwards and with a first born line being male through to Prince George, who being only 4 years old means next option unlikely to open for at least another 80 years.

    12. Re: Very Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But but but we are a nation of laws remember? Respect the LAW. What will society be like if we don't punish people in the most hurtful way imaginable for breaking OUR laws. If you pirate movies you should have your movie viewing priveleges revoked for life. I mean you should not be allowed to even have movies played in your home by anyone. There is no other options. I mean it isn't fair to the people who are waiting in line, not to pirate movies when you are cutting in front of them. Also think of how much we pay as a nation because of all the movie pirates. Even more, not all the movies they pirate have English words and subtitles. They are destroying our culture and taking over. If we don't stop this one day the nation might be taken over by people pirating movies. Then what?

    13. Re:Very Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      well it is arguable whether it is actually 'illegal' at all since the DMCA outlines civil liabilities for infringement but the only criminal outlines are for counterfeiting - pirating and selling that IP as original. A civil liability is different from a law, the civil and criminal courts are 2 different things.

    14. Re:Very Illegal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's very illegal. SO ILLEGAL that they broadcast it over the airwaves every Friday night, 9 / 8 central. For free. So where is really the harm in rebroadcasting it? No different to Tivo...

  3. That's a feature. Not a bug! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Many don't see this as a problem. Lol

    1. Re:That's a feature. Not a bug! by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      Better title: Copyright holders have a TV streaming problem.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    2. Re:That's a feature. Not a bug! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, apparently someone is upset that you can watch King Of The Hill episodes on YouTube. A show that ended production 8 years ago. WTF.

    3. Re:That's a feature. Not a bug! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yup. After 8 years, you should not be entitled to any interest on your investment. I'll take that principal, thank you very much.

    4. Re:That's a feature. Not a bug! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If the copyright holders to not rigorously defend their copyrights, they can lose their ability to defend/claim profits from them in future.

    5. Re:That's a feature. Not a bug! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You sure you aren't confusing copyrights with trademarks?

    6. Re: That's a feature. Not a bug! by Thundercat007 · · Score: 1

      If they could provide a way for me to watch King of the Hill instead of shoving the Kardashians down my throat. I would subscribe, but as of right now only Game of Thrones (whatever that is about) matters. I'll keep watching king of the hill on YouTube.

    7. Re:That's a feature. Not a bug! by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yup. After 8 years, you should not be entitled to any interest on your investment. I'll take that principal, thank you very much.

      You're gonna have a hard time with your retirement planning, then.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    8. Re:That's a feature. Not a bug! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yup. After 8 years, you should not be entitled to any interest on your investment. I'll take that principal, thank you very much.

      No, if there's really that much interest in a long-since-discontinued TV show, then the owners of that show should be making it available to people at a reasonable price, or, STFU.

    9. Re:That's a feature. Not a bug! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Like a virgin on her wedding night, looks like you eventually found the point.

    10. Re:That's a feature. Not a bug! by Solandri · · Score: 2

      Copyright exists because copyrightable works are different from other types of works (material, monetary). If I take your retirement principal, you no longer have it. If I take your copyrighted work, you still have it.

      The analogous situation with retirement savings can't really happen because money doesn't work that way. But if it did, it would be: I take your $200,000 retirement principle, and I have $200,000 and you still have $200,000.

      So the way to maximize the value of a copyrighted work to society is for everyone to get a copy. But if everyone gets a copy for free, then there's no incentive for people to create new works. So we set up a system where for a short time creators have exclusive rights to distribute their works in exchange for money. Once that time expires, it falls into the public domain, and the entire public gets the benefit of the formerly copyrighted work.

      Unfortunately, copyright holders have managed to get this time extended to a ridiculously long duration. Currently about 120 years (average remaining lifespan at time of creation + 70 years). Can you even name a dozen copyrighted works which were created 100-120 years ago? The duration is so ridiculously long that by the time copyrighted works fall into the public domain, they have next to zero value to society remaining, thus defeating the whole purpose of copyright. I'm not sure what the correct duration should be. 8 years seems too short. But it sure as hell isn't 120 years.

    11. Re: That's a feature. Not a bug! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Where the F have these people been the past decade? Google's whole business model is to strip potential competitors ability to make money and they can be the last leech standing. They do it with productivity software, OS, now advertising with their latest Chrome 'feature'. YouTube has been doing this in plain view since before they were even acquired.

    12. Re:That's a feature. Not a bug! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      You're gonna have a hard time with your retirement planning, then.

      Retirement? What's that?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    13. Re:That's a feature. Not a bug! by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      > But if everyone gets a copy for free, then there's no incentive for people to create new works.

      Incorrect.

      1. You are assuming money is the _only_ reward. HINT: It is not.

      2. Operating Systems are free yet people still create new ones. Did you _really_ ignore the ENTIRE open source movement???

      > So we set up a system where for a LONG time PUBLISHERS have exclusive rights to distribute their works in exchange for money.

      FTFY.

      The dirty secret of Copyright is that it was invented by --> Publishers <-- to maintain control by preventing other publishers from making a profit !!

      I've posted about this in the past ...

      "The history of copyright law starts with early privileges and monopolies granted to printers of books. The British Statute of Anne 1710, full title "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned", was the first copyright statute. Initially copyright law only applied to the copying of books."

      and

      "Pope Alexander VI issued a bull in 1501 against the unlicensed printing of books and in 1559 the Index Expurgatorius, or List of Prohibited Books, was issued for the first time."

      and

      "The first copyright privilege in England bears date 1518 and was issued to Richard Pynson, King's Printer, the successor to William Caxton. The privilege gives a monopoly for the term of two years. The date is 15 years later than that of the first privilege issued in France. Early copyright privileges were called "monopolies," ...

      and

      "In England the printers, known as stationers, formed a collective organization, known as the Stationers' Company. In the 16th century the Stationers' Company was given the power to require all lawfully printed books to be entered into its register. Only members of the Stationers' Company could enter books into the register. This meant that the Stationers' Company achieved a dominant position over publishing in 17th century England"

      History of Copyright Law

      Only a capitalist pig would make it illegal to share knowledge.

    14. Re:That's a feature. Not a bug! by ewibble · · Score: 1

      I agree with most of what you say but why does 8 years seem too short?

      How many movies are still making significant sums of money after 8 years, 8 years is plenty of time to recoup your investment plus profit. If you haven't made your money back by then you probably never will.

      The reason 8 years sounds short is your are comparing it to 120 year and thinking that sounds like a big difference, really if a person doesn't go out to watch your movie in the first month, they probably don't care enough to pay for it anyway.

      As you said goal is to give the producer incentive produce. It is not maximize there income.

    15. Re:That's a feature. Not a bug! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I can't have a retirement if I can't reinvent Mickey Mouse after 100 years how long should we wait 1000?

    16. Re: That's a feature. Not a bug! by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      Regarding point 2, I would say they are shitty so people make new ones, which are also shitty. So the better something is, the less likely it needs to be remade. Shit, I just realized that sentence is completely garbage to Hollywood.

    17. Re: That's a feature. Not a bug! by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      What the fuck does the Kardashians have to do with this? I watch over 50 hours of satellite TV a week and the Kardashians haven't been forced on me once. That is some fucked logic, or you are so stupid you can't operate a TV. Fucking loser.

  4. YouTube must be held responsible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As YouTube is now overtly (i.e. actively) deciding what videos are too 'controversial' to be seen on their service even if they don't violate their Terms of Service, I think YouTube should have it's safe harbor protection in the DMCA revoked and be held liable for each and every one of the illegal videos/streams on their system.

    Once you go above and beyond the 'take down videos upon DMCA request' and start deciding which videos can stay and which should go, you've lost the justification that you cannot be held responsible for which things appear on your service.

    RIAA .. MPAA -- sic'em ;)

    1. Re: YouTube must be held responsible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree. Also, there have been entire seasons of almost every show illegally up on YouTube for years. The livestream shows illegally thing is only a few months old.

    2. Re:YouTube must be held responsible by Qwertie · · Score: 1

      How could YouTube afford what you're suggesting? 300 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute. How many people would it take to police that? YouTube, like Google, is only able to provide the volume of free services that it does by not manually scanning content.

      YouTube has automatic content scanners, and the pirates know this. My stepson has been watching the Simpsons on YouTube (we have 8 seasons on DVD, but YouTube is more convenient) and I notice the videos use three separate measures to evade detection:

      1. Cropping: the picture is highly cropped, with about 20% of the picture cut off on all sides.
      2. Audio distortion: the voices sound wrong.
      3. Watermarking: special pirate watermarks are added.

    3. Re:YouTube must be held responsible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sites that moderate user content would lose their safe harbor protection using your argument.

    4. Re:YouTube must be held responsible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree - Given Youtube actively promote this by recommending I watch these live pirated channels on a regular basis in my recently updated section..

      I've never watched these channels/live feeds, never want to and don't want to have Youtube constantly recommending that I do.

      Interesting that Youtube have no easy way of reporting these channels/live feeds, almost like they don't want to know about it so they don't have to take responsibility for it happening.

    5. Re:YouTube must be held responsible by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      You kind of miss the point. In most cases YouTube is not censoring however it seems to have developed an extreme pro-establishment bias in censorship, challenge the establishment, whether from the right of left (hmm, funny that) and you will be actively censored in way one or another for all the rest, just a filtering algorithm that favours not taking down content, else it would tend to take down all content, just the nature of fair use provisions. So based upon active politically censorship that favours the big shit at alphabets own personal political preferences and that of his co-directors, bless their greedy tiny little dried out husks of hearts, they should lose their safe harbour provisions, class actions law suit seems appropriate. Either cut it the fuck out with biased political censorship or lose your safe harbour provisions and Google should then be 100% legally liable for all content YouTube distributes.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    6. Re:YouTube must be held responsible by goose-incarnated · · Score: 2

      Sites that moderate user content would lose their safe harbor protection using your argument.

      That's the point. If you're going to moderate you can't also claim you're not responsible.

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    7. Re:YouTube must be held responsible by ls671 · · Score: 1

      How could YouTube afford what you're suggesting? 300 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute. How many people would it take to police that?

      hmm... 300 hours/1 minute, 18,000 persons?

      --
      Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
    8. Re:YouTube must be held responsible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What I find weird is that they seem to censor content that isn't political, isn't hate speech, isn't illegal in any way and doesn't even have any kind of music. My dad likes watching amateur videos of people hurting themselves doing dumb shit, car accidents, etc and pretty often the videos either gets taken down or are edited to remove every remotely "gory" parts, sometimes there wasn't even anything to see yet they still remove the "after" part.

    9. Re:YouTube must be held responsible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How could YouTube afford what you're suggesting? 300 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute. How many people would it take to police that?

      My back of the fag packet calculations say about 54,000 people.

      I suspect automation would make it more efficient but paying each of these minimum wage (UK) to watch content and press a button would amount to about £1.2Bn per annum and doesn't seem impossible for a company with a global turnover of £70Bn.

      Big numbers aye - but certainly not the impossibility that is always claimed.

  5. Content producers have a problem by alvinrod · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Actually it sounds like content producers have an untapped market problem. Here you have people wanting to consume your content but are having to turn to pirate sources to do so, so either you aren't providing a way for potential customers to pay you for your content or assuming the case where all of these people are too poor to even pay $.01, to show them a small amount of advertisement along side of your content.

    Knowing this crowd though, they'll still fid a watch to bitch and moan about demand for their product. Oh to have their problems.

    1. Re:Content producers have a problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Payment? Advertising?
      I'm entitled to free entertainment! Gimme gimme gimme.

    2. Re:Content producers have a problem by alvinrod · · Score: 2

      There are probably a few people who operate that way, but I think they are a very small minority. Otherwise services like Netflix and Spotify would be failing miserably instead of increasing their subscriber count.

      At some point you'll end up spending more money trying to chase them down than you actually lose from them.

    3. Re:Content producers have a problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I went and RTFA (sorry)

      This looks like a big 'ol nothing-burger. He found some channels with a couple dozen viewers that YouTube usually shut down within an hour or so. One made it a whole 20 hours! It even ends with "if you get lucky you might get to watch a TV show for an hour or two before shut down".

      I get that some of these making their way into your recommendation stream might be annoying, but that's a simple algorithm tweak on the backend by Google. They right now prioritize recently launched live streams a bit much in all cases. Add some extra logic there, and done.

    4. Re:Content producers have a problem by mark-t · · Score: 2

      I think it is less likely that all of these people are all genuinely too poor to afford the content (because let's face it, Netflix is pretty damn cheap, considering...) and more likely the case that they simply just don't want to be bothered paying for it when they've found they can get it for free.

    5. Re: Content producers have a problem by Thundercat007 · · Score: 2

      People just watch it on YouTube for free because you end up with too many subscription services. Got to have Netflix, then o another show is only Available on Amazon, another series on Hulu but Hulu is Yank only so you need a VPN. People say screw it and YouTube for free

    6. Re:Content producers have a problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Over the course of a year, I watched all of Andromeda seasons 1–4 on YouTube accounts of this sort. Season 5 was on Dailymotion but not YouTube. A year. That's hardly "an hour or two."

      I've watched almost all of Benidorm on YouTube at one point or another.

      Neither of those is particularly popular. I doubt there are hordes of people making fake accounts every day or two to post them.

      YouTube likely knows that these channels are there and simply doesn't care. It wants viewers. Nothing has changed from the early days when YouTube quietly looked the other way when copyrighted material was uploaded.

    7. Re:Content producers have a problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Adromeda? What's that? Probably nobody was looking for pirate content because it's a niche sci-fi show. Policing content requires CPU power, a limited resource. The more you increase the search space of possible content to match, the less available CPU there will be.

    8. Re:Content producers have a problem by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Adromeda? What's that?

      Isn't that the galaxy with intelligent blancmanges?

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    9. Re:Content producers have a problem by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      In many cases these channels are the only source of Japanese anime videos with Japanese audio and English subtitles.

    10. Re:Content producers have a problem by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

      Depends, if they want you to watch the ads you are. The programme is only a way to try and make you watch the ads anyway.

      --
      Wanna buy a shirt?
      https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
    11. Re:Content producers have a problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I did that. It was about a decade when Sky (then satellite TV company) and Virgin Media (cable company) got into a dispute over channel fees. So channels like Sci-Fi and shows like Battlestar Galactica went off the air. I cancelled my cable subscription over this. Every month they would call up and ask if I wanted to upgrade my service. I kept reminding the agent of the current dispute. They'd offer premium channels with first few months free, all sorts of other goodies, all except the one show I wanted to watch. Instead I turned to the dark side and viewed streamed versions instead.

    12. Re:Content producers have a problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I watched part of the first season of Rick and Morty on YouTube, an episode just came into my feed randomly. I bought the first season on dvd, borrowed the second. Wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been exposed to it via YouTube. I've been watching Season 3 on YouTube again since I won't buy an entire cable subscription for one show, though would gladly pay them per episode or a reasonable subscription fee.

      Er... it's funny, a few weeks ago I went to the adultswim web site to see if I could stream it in Canada. The US site requires a cable subscription to stream, and the Canadian site provides no streaming options at all (in fact there's very little on the .ca version). I just searched on the web and found an article that mentioned there is an adultswim app in Canada that lets you subscribe for $4/mo. There's some money they could've already had from me if they'd simply mentioned it on their site.

    13. Re:Content producers have a problem by cthulhu11 · · Score: 1

      For sure most movie / ep vids that survive on youtube are just phishing showing a URL to some sketchy external site.

  6. A balance must be struck... by thegreatbob · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A balance must be struck between the masses that want the entertainment as cheaply as possible vs. the content providers who would love to be able to charge you extra for letting house guests watch your TV with you.

    --
    There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
    1. Re:A balance must be struck... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And it is up to content providers to figure that out WITHOUT COMPLAINING when their decisions result in undesired behavior.

    2. Re:A balance must be struck... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It certainly be nice if there was some balance. But there never will be, as long as the entertainment industry is dominated by JEWS.

      No amount of money is ever enough. YouTube pays them a billion dollars a year? Not enough. Spotify pays them two billion a year? Not enough. Billions of dollars a year, that they wouldn't be getting if these online services didn't exist, and all the JEWS do is constantly complain that it isn't enough.

      Just think about that for a minute. You can get paid billions of dollars a year, at zero cost to you, for doing absolutely nothing. Just sit back and let the truck loads of money roll in. But instead, you would rather sue people and shut down the free money, because you're only getting $XX Billion instead of $ZZ Billion.

    3. Re:A balance must be struck... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This comment could probably have become +++++insightful if the poster wasn't so directly singling out a group of people based on their heritage. Not saying that what they're saying is entirely untrue, just that it's possible to demonstrate the same points while not coming off as a whiny weenie. Plenty of non-Jewish folk are just as much to blame.

    4. Re: A balance must be struck... by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      I love sitcoms and comedies. You take the jews out of Hollywood and you've fucked Hollywood. What's with all you unfunny racists? Fuck, laugh a little and stop being such cunts.

  7. YouTube by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    YouTube (and therefore google) has got far more problems than just "illegal TV streaming". Since it has become a platform for hate speech and hate groups, YouTube will now be dealing with droves of people leaving en masse to dry up the ad revenue supporting these diseased freaks. You can't ignore this anymore, and YouTube can't have it both ways. Cut off their oxygen.

    Fix your hearts, or die.

  8. I don't think the report actually... by Bartles · · Score: 0

    ...looked at any of the videos. Only looked at titles and duration. If they had, they would have seen that these streams simply tell the viewer that a link to the video is actually displayed in the description section. This article is an epic fail.

    1. Re:I don't think the report actually... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Incorrect, there are actually streams of tv shows ( family guy being the most common ). Where they stream the full episodes one after another until the channel gets banned.

    2. Re: I don't think the report actually... by Bartles · · Score: 1

      Oooh. They're streaming a show thats been syndicated since I was in college. That's not how the article portrays it.

  9. Why yes I do know I can do that however. by sims+2 · · Score: 1

    I usually want to watch a specific episode or episodes in order and that's just not usually something you can do with live streamed pirate marathons.

    --
    Minimum threshold fixed. Thanks!
  10. well, duh by jediborg · · Score: 1

    Because enforcing copyright law with 100% accuracy on a video sharing website is basically impossible. Doing it with even 80% accuracy is highly improbable.

    The government does not maintain an infallible list of all content that is copyrighted and who the copyright owners are. Therefore there is no such 'list' that a program can reference to identify copyrighted (and more importantly, non-copyrighted or public domain) works with 100% accuracy. Compound that with the fact that there is no program, deep learned or not, that can identify video with 100% accuracy and you have to conclude that there will ALWAYS be so-called 'illegal' copyrighted content on video and file sharing websites.

    Maybe instead of continuing to have laws that defy technological reality, we can just reform our copyright laws. Any by 'reform' I mean 'abolish'. (Though some would be happy with 'reduce copyright term to some arbitrary number less than life of author + 150 years)

    1. Re:well, duh by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 1

      Doing it with even 80% accuracy is highly improbable.

      A deep convolutional NN should be able to do it. Someone should sponsor a Kaggle competition.

      Or, even easier, just do speech-to-text on the audio component and try to match it to a DB of movie scripts.

    2. Re:well, duh by GuB-42 · · Score: 1

      This is not easy because pirates will deliberately try to trick your AI.
      It also has to run in reasonable time with few false positives. The speech-to-text approach for example could trigger if someone is just quoting some lines from a movie.

    3. Re:well, duh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait. AI can drive a car without incident but it doesn't recognize stolen TV shows? Because it's EASIER to recognize the world in motion than a pre-recorded stream of bits? ROFLMAO. One of these things does not belong... and oh by the way that AI is gonna kill you soon, so regulate all the programmers like mad. Sigh. It's like Trump logic has infected the entire planet!

    4. Re: well, duh by hackwrench · · Score: 1

      Besides everyone should reread the laws currently on the books and they might be pleasantly surprised to discover that their particular activity is actually a civil matter and not a criminal one.

    5. Re:well, duh by Plus1Entropy · · Score: 1

      Because it's EASIER to recognize the world in motion than a pre-recorded stream of bits? ROFLMAO.

      Yeah, actually it is. In the first case I just want to be able to recognize any car traveling down any road. Anything meeting this broad definition counts.

      In the second case I need to know for sure that this isn't just a blue car driving down a road, or even a specific blue car driving down a particular road, but that it's actually the exact same footage of a specific blue car driving down a particular road.

      Anyway, they do have detection techniques that work, clearly. That's why many videos of copyrighted material are cropped oddly, or it pans randomly across part of the footage every so often, or where the sound has been tuned to a higher or lower pitch. Sometimes all of the above.

      --
      Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
    6. Re: well, duh by KGIII · · Score: 1

      Huh...

      Your comment just made me ponder police interaction with autonomous vehicles. While the cars are unlikely to violate rules of the road, there are many other times when police want to stop vehicles and perform various checks.

      There's some amusing thoughts in there. Also, what if it has to wait in line to get fuel? How does it even know where the pumps are?

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  11. NARK by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Come on, man

  12. Stick it to the man by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Anyone who subscribes to TV streaming is a cuck.
    Exceptional quality rips, untainted by advertising, free of cost, and most of all the feeling that you're doing the right thing, and not funding money grubbing studios who lobby to destroy the internet.

    No intellectual property; no problem.

    1. Re:Stick it to the man by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      Yeah... it's far better to trust completely untrusted sources while BROADCASTING to the world that I'm a pirate.

      Unless you are a poor kid with no assets, you're better off just paying for what you use. If you can do it, there's no compelling reason to be a deadbeat.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
  13. Re:America has an illegal alien problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Obviously you're a fascist Nazi.

  14. My heart bleeds for them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I say "TOUGH SHIT". Guess what, TV networks? I skip ALL the commercials when I watch things on my DVR, and you can't do ANYTHING ABOUT IT. You want to come arrest me? LOL. You should be glad people WANT to watch your shows.

  15. Fuck you. by ponraul · · Score: 1

    It's not a problem at all.

  16. YouTube Has An Illegal TV Streaming Feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here's to you, YouTube!

  17. SHUT IT DOWN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    (((OI VEY!!!!!)))

  18. No shock to anyone by bravecanadian · · Score: 1

    YouTube's popularity up until it hit a critical mass was built on content that didn't belong to them.

    This is just the latest variation.

    1. Re:No shock to anyone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But *any* business is based on "content" which doesn't "belong" to the business (that's called exploitation, btw).

  19. that boy ain't right! by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    that boy ain't right!

  20. I don't have that problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't watch TV, and even though I watch a ton of Youtube videos, I don't get TV show suggestions.

  21. Not Illegal - Stop bad assumptions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How do you know they're doing it illegally? The content controllers could have licensed it to them to stream the videos on YouTube.

    1. Re:Not Illegal - Stop bad assumptions by tepples · · Score: 1

      If so, the stream's description would include a license identifier.

  22. The rule of the streets and prison applies here by BlytheBowman · · Score: 1

    I am way more worried about the Trump and rising hate and people getting killed problem this country is having right now. I think this piracy might actually be a good thing, as it it telling the suits that people don't like to be controlled, and don't want to be nickled and dimed to death. The moment the suits think people will accept being controlled, they will put the clamps on, and on HARD, and tighten them until your appendages fall off. This is sort of how streets, prison or even the schoolyard works: If you appear weak, you will be "punked" (victimized) over and over and over again and it will never stop. If you are strong, you won't be messed with and suffer as much. The general public needs to make sure they don't get punked.

  23. Aereo! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "You might be surprised to learn" - Nope, not surprised in the least!

    There was this company not too long ago called Aereo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aereo

    There is an audience. Content producers aren't catering to that audience. So the audience will solve the problem for themselves. The content producers had an opportunity to make the problem non-existent by working with Aereo. Instead of doing the intelligent thing, they opted to shut Aereo down. This is the new Aereo.

  24. Good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Good.

    Given just how badly copyright law has been mangled in favor of companies, including attempting to erode property rights of anything that has a computer chip in it (see: John Deere tractors, and attempts to control consumer computers), at this point the content industry are thieves from the public domain. The entire original point of copyright is broken badly in the favor of these corporations that want to just suck as much money out of your wallet as possible. Ultimately their end game is likely for most people to live in a state of indentured servitude, renting everything from them, lest you violate the ToS of your coffee pot or fridge. Said coffee pot will spy on you, feed your data via "telemetry" to corporations and three-letter agencies, and you'll have to accept that because it'll be against the ToS to remove that code (DRM circumvention, against DMCA, can't have that!), too, or to avoid any additional "updates" that make things worse. And there won't be any regular kitchen appliances on the market that are affordable to most people. All in the name of protecting "content" for big corporations; content that, if we were going by the original intent in the Constitution, should often have passed into the hands of the public years before.

    This doesn't factor in how most of their "facts and figures" in terms of their "losses" are numbers pulled out of their ass. And this is just scratching the surface with the extreme problems of IP law in this country and the short- and long-term damage they present on every level.

    Until that changes, returning the favor is a-OK with me.

    Also, to the shills who will inevitably ramble something about how no content will be produced without DRM, then I guess there's no problem since clearly this stuff
      on YouTube isn't content or else it would never have been produced!

  25. Mindblowing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Absolutely shocking illegal streams creeping into my suggested playlist and illegally entertaining me. Oh the ipmanity!

  26. The first rule of illegal live streams club ... by Babel-17 · · Score: 2

    Anyway, I've wondered if content providers ever thought of dealing with piracy in a different way. Maybe include a big "This show is provided courtesy of Kraft Foods", or something like that, at the beginning, and only really go after the pirates who edit that out. Product placement has at times gotten extensive enough at times to be considered being an embedded commercial. I saw a Warehouse 13 episode where they basically stopped the show so Claudia could walk people through the virtues of her new Toyota Prius. White Collar did the same with a Ford Taurus, with Peter, the FBI agent, giving a demonstration of how its automatic anti-collision system worked. I don't know, maybe release a "here you go" version of TV shows that have an "Advertiser's cut" where some extra scenes are added that have even more product placement. We could have an episode of Fringe where the show stops so Walter could extoll the virtues of a candy he enjoys. Oh wait, they already did that. :) Lol, so just add in more of the same, and get your money up front from the advertisers. "Millions of people will see your candy being enjoyed in pirated episodes!".

  27. Justin.tv has an illegal... wait by hord · · Score: 1

    Twitch.tv has an illegal... wait ... /me watches c-net on ustream... wait

  28. How many times can we say "illegal"? by Trogre · · Score: 3, Funny

    ...these free (and very illegal) TV live streams...

    Was this article written by a copyright troll?

    --
    "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    1. Re:How many times can we say "illegal"? by Aighearach · · Score: 1

      Maybe he's from North Korea, and watching them carries a death sentence? Don't always just assume the worst and that it is a troll.

      --
      "Whatever the problem: solve it with fire!" -- Magical Kyoko

    2. Re:How many times can we say "illegal"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's funny, but i've actually seen a lot of my usual shows being streamed in the manner he suggests, and if you're not a regular user of YouTube you might be surprised how brazen it is. For any given top network show it's not hard to find channels and livestreams that are literally just titled "$SHOWNAME SEASON SIX LIVESTREAM WATCH NOW", no ads, no content censor tricks (reversing the image, slowing/speeding playback etc), no nothing - just a high def stream. Hundreds or thousands of users watching.

      It's a lot more out in the open than people selling DVDs on the street, and at least there enforcement is hard. Google owns its site, and these are copyright holders that are very active in chasing other piracy. I suspect the buried lede is that they are piloting another approach, at least with some low-common-denominator content.

    3. Re:How many times can we say "illegal"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...these free (and very illegal) TV live streams...

      Was this article written by a copyright troll?

      Hard to say. In the USA, the Bill of Rights supersedes mere Acts of Congress, including the DMCA and other Copyright laws - and it also supersedes the pre-Bill of Rights Constitution (any argument to the contrary would violate the right to ethical practice of law). It is illegal for organizations to interfere with the exercise of fundamental rights, including rights arising under the open-ended portions of the Bill of Rights - which means any rights the people decide they have, independent of their elected officials. Fair use rights are also applicable.

      To the extent that any relevant judicial ruling - including any Supreme Court ruling - contradicts this, those rulings are illegal and represent both a violation of the judge(s) oaths to uphold the Bill of Rights, a violation of the right to ethical practice of law, and a violation of the Constitutional requirement of "good behaviour".

      Clearly, many things that get posted to YouTube are in fact done so as an exercise of fundamental rights (and hence can not be "very illegal" but in fact are "very legal"). But others are not. As has been discussed previously on this forum, US copyright law (including the DMCA) in it's current form violates a number of fundamental rights (including and especially the right to ethical practice of law). At the same time, most in society would agree that producers of movies and audio have a right to make a reasonable (but certainly not maximal) profit from their efforts, and may have some "moral rights" as well. In this is where we fall into the "hard to say" category.

      For those videos that are done as an exercise of fundamental rights (which is many of the ones that get suppressed), the conclusion follows that the automated mechanisms for suppressing such streams (replacing them with a copyright notice) are in fact being operated as an illegal infringement of fundamental rights. For the attorneys (or executives) representing the parties involved in doing this to claim that this is being done under copyright law or the DMCA (or to participate in writing related contracts) makes this an infringement of fundamental rights "under the colour of law", which has been a criminal offence under US federal law since the post-Civil War Reconstruction era.

      Don't expect anybody to actually enforce this law. Corruption in US government is deeply entrenched, and the law gets ignored whenever a) it is inconvenient, and b) the public will let the government get away with it. Judges in high office are selected by politicians who accept campaign contributions aka bribes from various special interest groups, and thus can be observed as being active participants in the corruption - the positions themselves (and the chance of selection for higher office) become a form of bribery, and once a judge starts down this dark path they can not turn back. Even if one has the millions of dollars needed to get a case before the Supreme Court, the corruption in high office means that only a clear case of being in the right AND a massive Civil Rights movement will result in a outcome consistent with either justice or rule of law (as the US legal history involving "Jim Crow" clearly demonstrates - and nothing has changed in subsequent US legal history). Further, the system does it's best to ensure that such cases never appear before the court, so precedent is set not on the basis of what decent people are doing, but rather what the other sociopaths (the ones not in government) are doing - a fact that is used to create propaganda regarding the legitimacy of government action and the law.

      Land of the Free, Home of the Brave - all that stuff, it's all a lie.

  29. the slow YouTube shuffle by epine · · Score: 1

    I actually think YouTube is policing some of this stuff fairly aggressively.

    Once I discovered that Maddow is comprehensible at x2 speed (though not always her guests), I find her show worth watching in full (in my entire life, I once had an "introductory" cable subscription for a whole 30 days that they foolishly offered one year where my sad-sack sports team actually made the playoffs—after that it was back to the local pub if I cared enough to watch a game).

    I start by watching Maddow's official feed, which usually has about 20 minutes in total, in two pieces, from her most recent show. Later in the day, YouTube usually "suggests" a bootleg copy of the entire show, and if the show was interesting, sometimes I fill in the gaps.

    Most of these have the bootleg content downsized substantially, with a lot of visual clutter, audio gaps and pops and clicks overlaid, and sometimes bits and pieces of other news coverage randomly appended at the end. This all appears to be a ruse to evade YouTube's automatic copyright detection. It probably has fairly limited appeal, the kind of hardcore wonk such as myself who doesn't give a shit that it was filmed through a potato, so long as the guest is entirely unlike Kellyanne Conway.

    Lately the pops and clicks have disappeared, but the audio is 3–5 seconds out of sync with the video (it shocks me that YouTube doesn't provide a way to adjust audio sync on the fly; I found a tip today that VLC supports the J and K keys to shift the audio by 50 ms increments in either direction).

    In general, the level of distortion has been on the rise. I have a strong suspicion that this is due to a cat and mouse game that YouTube is taking fairly seriously. They could probably block the generating accounts fairly easily, but they seem to prefer automatic content analysis. I suspect the cat is playing with this mouse somewhat deliberately.

    Maybe the clip lasts for 24 hours and gets 1000 views. I think it's fairly immaterial to Maddow's and MSNBC's long term economic prospects.

    The biggest trove of copyright material I've found (without seeking it out as such) was several dozen episodes of Inside the Actors Studio featuring all kinds of A-list celebrities.

    Then one day in January 2014 I noticed that all of these had vanished in a puff of sour lips. There was one or two episodes I wouldn't mind owning (Robin Williams, Kevin Spacey). But not at USD $80 per disk, which is how I recall the retail price.

    YouTube could be better about all this, but it could also be far worse.

    Note that YouTube takedowns are fairly severe: it's not just the contents, but the title, the description, the date it was posted, the likes, and all of the user comments that vanish. Total sour face 404.

  30. Youtube is the gateway site to piracy: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The purpose of youtube is to find content you seek without restriction to its copyright (typically using terms like "lyrics" or "subtitled" and under the union blanket protections of a blue state with fair use laws for faculty.)

    It is legal to find them. And its blue state teachers who use loop holes to provide them (unless someone uses the wonderful library of congress; or public domain argument). (nobody cares which possibly legal thing it is, as long as you can reply back to a takedown request slower than obliging)

    We dont care about piracy one bit. its legal when defined by other terms. revamp the system. Nobody wants to care who loses money. Even the rightsholders.

    Even more enjoyable is the fact that technologically you cant stop piracy. Im half tempted to make an OS for the Raspberry Pi called Racy ;)

  31. When the man is a dog in the manger by tepples · · Score: 1

    Unless you are a poor kid with no assets, you're better off just paying for what you use.

    Most people in the world are "a poor kid with no assets." Even if you limit it to U.S. residents, most people lack billions of dollars to purchase a controlling interest in a publisher that refuses to take people's money. For example, in order for a U.S. resident to find a lawful stream of the film Song of the South or Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night or the TV series Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea, he'd first have to buy half the voting stock of the owner of copyright in each of those works in order to force the publisher to make it available at all. I'd bet not even President Trump is rich enough for that route.

  32. wow thanks! by Imazalil · · Score: 1

    First you tell me the amazing news that there is free television in the air all around us, I just need this "antenna" thing. Now, I was pleasantly 'surprised to learn that' there is sometimes free television on this youtube thing as well. Golly!

    Now I'm all excited for the next 'but wait, there's more!' article. Don't disappoint me /., and please tell me where to send a self addressed and stamped envelope to receive a free brochure and dvd.

  33. Live Streaming Porn? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Where's the live streaming porn? All I can find on Youtube is Fox News and South Park cartoons. lol.

  34. Fake News They Know by dadelbunts · · Score: 1

    I have a VERY hard time believing they dont know. I am constantly pushed family guy streams even tho i have no interest and never search for family guy or anything like it.

  35. Most WHAT? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From the blurb:

    > Most people turn to Netflix to binge watch full seasons of a single TV show,

    I think I never, ever watched anything on Netflix (even not at friends'). I try to keep it that way. As far as I am concerned, Netflix: you may go bust. Along with your fat investors. Next bubble burst, perhaps?

    > but there could be a much cheaper way: YouTube.

    Youtube? Via cclive or youtube-dl. Perhaps eight to twelve a year, when I get sent a link I care enough about.

    Folks. Stop being slaves.

  36. Not what it seemss by eclectro · · Score: 1

    Many copyright holders will not force a takedown but instead select the option to "receive the revenue" instead and leave the video up.

    Having many shows generate revenue on youtube can be a very lucrative business instead of having them just sit on a shelf somewhere.

    The fact is if you are not streaming your content somewhere now, your content is worth less than a rock out back. if people can not find your stuff they just move on to one of the other countless options they have.

    --
    Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
  37. Why the fuck would they care? by schleimkeim · · Score: 1

    They put ads on obviously copyright protected music and make money with that. I'm not talking about pop music, I'm talking about stuff from small labels that don't bother to send out copyright strikes. I mean you could argue that "well, they didn't flag it!", but if it's obviously copyrighted nonetheless then don't talk about "we care about blablablabla" No you don't. All you fuckers care about is money. Google was a mistake.

  38. shiiiit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    they finally found me

    runs off laughing

  39. ill tell you why by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    cause ive developed a ad blocker that works against here revenue generating and have shared it a trillion billion times already

    no profits for these cock knockers

  40. "YouTube respects the rights of copyright holders" by drew_92123 · · Score: 1

    Bullshit... if they did they would allow somebody other than the copyright holder to report the violation... but they don't. In fact they have made it nearly impossible for non-copyright holders to report such violations directly to YouTube...

    Why? To keep their views, and thus ad revenue, as high as possible... because they're only in it for the money...

  41. Ha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Youtube doesn't give a shit as long as people keep watching.

  42. Re: The first rule of illegal live streams club .. by Brockmire · · Score: 1

    These 1 minute spots are shit. Microsoft and a car did it on Royal Pains and totally took me out of interest. I watched the show Room 104 and they had a cherry 7-up spot. Given brands are usually not shown, this stood out without taking me out of the story. I don't mind product placement, but a fucking demo likely kills the actors shilling for it (unless they get bonus money...).