A man who made over £2 million (€2.3m) by selling set-top boxes that enabled buyers to watch premium television content without a subscription has been jailed. Halton Mark Anthony Powell, of Hornchurch in east London, launched Droidsticks Ltd. in 2013 and sold the set-top boxes through his shop, website and an online marketplace. An investigation […]

Italy’s Polizia postale (Postal police) in the city of Catania have conducted an operation against audiovisual piracy, with the execution of numerous searches and seizures in 23 provinces. Seventy people are currently under investigation for criminal association of a transnational nature aimed at the dissemination of conditional access television modules. They also face other charges […]

Since 2015, Hub Entertainment Research’s annual Conquering Content study has examined the various ways US TV consumers discover and watch TV shows and movies. Highlights from this year’s study: 1) Seven in 10 consumers (71 per cent) say they’ve discovered a show in the past year that has become a favourite—and a strong majority say […]

An academic study, The Impact of Video Piracy on Content Producers and Distributors, from researchers at the Department of Business Administration, University of Delaware and the Department of Economics, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has found that adoption of piracy software, such as Kodi, does not harm paid OTT video providers and may […]

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), the coalition dedicated to protecting the dynamic legal ecosystem for creative content, says it applauds the Malaysian Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs (MDTCA) for recent actions it took against the operators of illegal streaming devices (ISDs). On October 15th, the MDTCA, assisted by ACE, seized more […]

Lionsgate+, the SVoD service from Starz, is now available on Sky Glass and Sky Q in the UK and Ireland, as well as via Sky Stream in the UK. Later in 2022, the app will arrive on Sky Q and Sky Glass in Italy, and Sky Q in Germany. Customers in the UK, Ireland, Germany […]

Two men have been sentenced after they illegally sold and retransmitted broadcasts produced by Sky and BT Sport, and further enabled the unauthorised distribution of on-demand films. Following a trial at Canterbury Crown Court in the southeast of England, following an investigation by Kent County Council Trading Standards, Billy Martin from London was sentenced to […]

UK multiplay telco TalkTalk is launching a new TV Hub. Available as a limited release to customers on Full Fibre packages, the new box offers over 70 live TV channels, catchup services including BBC iPlayer and ITV Hub, a huge range of streaming & subscription services including Netflix, Prime Video and NOW, plus Google Play […]

The Singapore Police Force has arrested four women and 13 men, aged between 24 and 61, for their suspected involvement in the sales of illegal streaming devices. On October 4th, 2022, officers from the Criminal Investigation Department conducted simultaneous raids at several retail shops in Sim Lim Square. During the operation, more than 2,500 sets […]

Set-top box (STB) shipments continued to decline in 2021, driven by a combination of migration to streaming, market saturation, consumer cost-cutting measures, and supply chain constraints, according to technology intelligence firm ABI Research’s Set-Top Boxes and CPE market data report. ABI Research says that a global, subdued demand will result in a contraction of global […]