Singapore’s high court has ordered a block of 30 sites and almost 150 associated domains responsible for the distribution of illegally streamed movie and TV content.
The Coalition Against Piracy (CAP) brought the court action along with the UK’s BBC Studios and the Premier League, US-based Discovery Communications, Italy’s LaLiga and Hong Kong-based TVB International.
The streaming sites were playing sports, drama and entertainment programmes produced or distributed by the plaintiffs.
The court order means Internet service providers must disable access to these illegal sites and their associated domains.
The legal action is part of CAP’s campaign in Asia against illegal streaming sites. “Illegal streaming sites are simply illegal,” CAP general manager Matthew Cheetham said.
“Piracy is not a victimless crime and hurts not only content providers but also consumers who can be exposed to viruses and malware when accessing illegal sites, including malware that can access a user’s sensitive data such as banking details,” he added.
CAP recently released a study indicating that a typical user visiting illegal streaming sites could be infected by ransomware, several trojan horses, and other threats within 42 seconds on a Windows machine, and 78 seconds for an Android device.
The results support the hypothesis that there is a nexus between illegal streaming sites and malware infections, where site operators generate significant revenue from allowing malicious ads to be placed on their sites, CAP said.
Malware authors can in turn gain access to consumer PCs and mobile devices, and all of the data held in storage, including access to banking login details and other sensitive logins.
- George Russell
READ MORE:
China Sets Down Guidelines for Television Dramas
Tencent Seen Taking US-Listed Streaming Firm DouYu Private
Disney Revenues Soar Amid Rollout of Asia-Pacific Originals
