File sharing sites Openload and Streamango shut down by Anti-Piracy Alliance ACE

[Saiyan]

Source: https://torrentfreak.com/openload-and-others-taken-down-by-anti-piracy-alliance-ace-191031/

 

Summery: Due to the heavy amount of pirated content being distributed under the Openload.co domain they have shut down their service along with Streamcherry

Quote

Openload, one of the largest file-hosting sites on the Internet, has agreed to shut down its service. Openload.co and several related domains, including Streamango, now show a banner confirming that they have been taken over by global anti-piracy coalition ACE. According to ACE, the operator further agreed to pay significant damages.

 

My Opinion: The fact that these conglomerate of companies are still trying to bring down piracy like this is a wasted effort. As soon as you shut one down another pops up. A lot of the time these sources give attention to material that otherwise wouldn't be noticed. I'm referring to the fact that these two sources were a big part of anime distribution sites that I frequent and seeing them go down like this isn't exactly making me happy. For the case of anime you are stuck on legal sites like crunchyroll or funimation which don't have catalogues near as big as 3rd party hosting sites. So in the instance (I'll be it slim) that they can't find hosts for videos anymore you're stuck just on what the legal sites want to license, So because of the entertainment I consume I hope that will see new hosting sites pop up to take their place. I don't want to start a debate about whether you think sharing files is legal or illegal I'm just saying I don't want to lose more hosts for content I enjoy, ever driving everyone to go to legal subscription based sites to consume media. Lastly fact that ACE has known-fully taken this as a win in their book is frightening that they're starting to crackdown on it but realistically with how many sites pop up the way they do I don't imagine much can change so quick.

 

After thoughts: If someone in the comments can elaborate how this ACE has any type of jurisdiction over servers hosted in all kinds of countries that would be great because I don't get how the pecking order works for something like this and how they can force them to shut down.

Quote

Prior to this ACE action, Openload and Streamango were massive piracy outfits. Openload alone had more than 1,000 servers in Romania, France, and Germany,

 

[Trik'Stari]

Worth noting: You'll get a better experience pirating anything Funimation has on their streaming site than actually using their streaming site. I cancelled my subscription to them because it's complete garbage. Poorly optimized, takes forever to load, has annoying Funimation adverts (Because paying to watch on your walled garden means I need to see adverts about the walled garden) and annoyingly always reverted me to Japanese version of shows whenever I came back to the site.

 

Just complete garbage. Maybe if they spent some money on having a decent streaming service, people would be less likely to pirate. I have 1gbps fiber and their streaming site was still slow and horrible.

[Bacon soup]

 

4 minutes ago, Saiyan said:

The fact that these conglomerate of companies are still trying to bring down piracy like this is a wasted effort. As soon as you shut one down another pops up.

believe me when i say there are individuals that use anti-piracy campaigns to climb corporate ladders and others who use them for financial gain. As soon as you shut down one anti-piracy campaign, another pops up.

[Arika]

8 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

Worth noting: You'll get a better experience pirating anything Funimation has on their streaming site than actually using their streaming site.

I was allowed to create an account.

add payment info.

set up a subscription.

and when i tried to watch anything "this is not available in your region"

 

if you can't show anything, don't allow people to set up a subscription....

[williamcll]

At least Zippyshare is still up, I think that is the most fastest among Warez sites.

[Salv8 (sam)]

1 hour ago, Saiyan said:

I'm referring to the fact that these two sources were a big part of anime distribution sites that I frequent and seeing them go down like this isn't exactly making me happy.

*cough* torrent *cough*

 

sorry I've got sore throat... i'm not feeling well...

[Guest]

What about mega.nz lol

I've never even heard of these sites

[BuckGup]

2 hours ago, hiitswilliam said:

What about mega.nz lol

I've never even heard of these sites

You must not be a pirate lol. There are thousands of private trackers you will never hear about that will never get taken down either. Piracy will remain as long as corporations keep screwing the customer over

[Trik'Stari]

10 hours ago, Arika S said:

I was allowed to create an account.

add payment info.

set up a subscription.

and when i tried to watch anything "this is not available in your region"

 

if you can't show anything, don't allow people to set up a subscription....

Their entire service is just shit. Complete and utter shit.

 

@LinusTech If you want a funny video, do a review of Funimation's streaming website.

[2FA]

Openload was one probably one of the best sites for streaming, it was almost always way faster than all the others. I don't watch streams really anymore but sad to see it go.

[spartaman64]

9 hours ago, Tegos said:

Or as it's known in some social circles: "shit".

I don't know about Funimation's streaming platform (but seeing as its Funimation, probably not very good), but Crunchyroll is completely awful. Bad catalogue, bad community, bad everything, basically.

Oh and they're also lying about that whole "Support the anime industry by buying CR!" shtick. Most of the money coming into crunchyroll stays in crunchyroll, they barely pay studios.

vrv Kappa

[Thaldor]

9 hours ago, Salv8 (sam) said:

sorry I've got sore throat... i'm not feeling well...

Sorry to hear, get better soon. I will help by seeding some Horrible sub-genre of clovers.

If you get what I mean

[Donut417]

11 hours ago, Saiyan said:

After thoughts: If someone in the comments can elaborate how this ACE has any type of jurisdiction over servers hosted in all kinds of countries that would be great because I don't get how the pecking order works for something like this and how they can force them to shut down.

 

Read the warnings that are on DVD's and Blurays. Most of them have FBI and Interpol warnings. The key one being Internpol. While US copy right law does not extend across borders, Treaties signed by the US and other countries protect copy righted work. In the case of the US copy rights and patents are protected under the constution, as in the government is given the job to protect these things. Thats why the US, is all gun ho about stopping piracy. Though they never will. 

 

12 hours ago, Saiyan said:

legal or illegal I'm just saying I don't want to lose more hosts for content I enjoy, ever driving everyone to go to legal subscription based sites to consume media.

This is the reason I stopped pirating myself. Because I was having a hard time keep up with what sources worked and didnt. Thought I do still watch anime on sites, if I can find one working. Mostly just Attack on Titan. But this is the life of a pirate. You just have to jump ship when the hammer comes down. 

[mr moose]

It never ceases to amaze me how many people think they are entitled to content without paying for.  If the company is being bitch whore hoarding their wares and not allowing you to watch it in your country or for a reasonable price then don't watch it. you don't have the right to steal it (go on, I know someone wants to try and claim it isn't theft)

 

These sites make money out of pirating material they do not have the right to distribute.  Not liking how a company operates does not legitimize supporting (and benefiting from) criminal activity. 

[mr moose]

@Teddy07 why was that funny?

[Teddy07]

33 minutes ago, mr moose said:

@Teddy07 why was that funny?

I just thought it is funny because it could be a statement by a media company and I am a pirate

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, Teddy07 said:

I just thought it is funny because it could be a statement by a media company and I am a pirate

I have very little in common with media companies, in fact I personally despise most of them.

[Video Beagle]

6 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I have very little in common with media companies, in fact I personally despise most of them.

psst...might want to change the corporate owned avatar, then

[mr moose]

12 minutes ago, Video Beagle said:

psst...might want to change the corporate owned avatar, then

Max headroom was not corporate owned. he was the end result of corporate corruption and spent the rest of his existence making people laugh on an  amateur small time mobile tv station.

[leadeater]

On 11/2/2019 at 12:19 AM, Trik'Stari said:

Poorly optimized, takes forever to load

Yep super annoying.

 

On 11/2/2019 at 12:19 AM, Trik'Stari said:

has annoying Funimation adverts (Because paying to watch on your walled garden means I need to see adverts about the walled garden)

Think they got rid of these, haven't had any in a while.

 

On 11/2/2019 at 12:19 AM, Trik'Stari said:

annoyingly always reverted me to Japanese version of shows whenever I came back to the site.

Go in to your account settings and you can set  Language and quality settings on your account, never had an issue since I did that.

 

Still a WAY worse service than Crunchyroll but I so much prefer watching stuff in a language I can understand, reading I do not find enjoyable at all.

[leadeater]

22 hours ago, Saiyan said:

Openload, one of the largest file-hosting sites on the Internet, has agreed to shut down its service. Openload.co and several related domains, including Streamango

Oh no all my legitimate videos I watch on there, what do I do now?!

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

(go on, I know someone wants to try and claim it isn't theft)

It would be theft if pirating the content would mean that the copyright owner loses revenue or a physical item.  Seeing as the so-called "piracy" here only involves digital content, the whole "physical item" thing goes out the window already. 

If the copyright owner doesn't give you the option to buy/license this digital content, there is no lost sale, no lost revenue, and hence no piracy. 

 

It's a different thing if a service is just bad.  Even if it has buffering issues, not all the content you want or a clunky UI and ads, they are still providing copyrighted content so there is no excuse to not pay for it.  By all means torrent the stuff for convenience's sake, but do pay the license for that content. 

 

And for the record: I have imported CDs and DVDs from Japan and the US because the music and content simply wasn't available here, not even in digital form on the various online music stores (iTunes, Google Play, Bandcamp, 7digital, etc etc). 

However some of that was at great expense.  The moment you start paying triple digits for a single CD, you do question your sanity and your commitment to actually reward artists for their work by purchasing it. 

[leadeater]

46 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

It would be theft if pirating the content would mean that the copyright owner loses a sale or a physical item.  Seeing as the so-called "piracy" here only involves digital content, the whole "physical item" thing goes out the window already. 

If this line of thinking was really all that true then IP laws wouldn't exist because there is 'no lost sale' or physical item. Linking a theft of an idea or process to lost revenue of the victim company/person is actually very hard to do directly, in the same way as it is linking pirated movies/music/games but we still have IP laws and for good reason.

 

46 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

If the copyright owner doesn't give you the option to buy/license this digital content, there is no lost sale, no lost revenue, and hence no piracy. 

That's a huge assumption the majority of pirating happening is because of availability, the biggest link has always been financial situation. Both exist but one is far greater cause than the other. I'd probably also rate too high asking price above availability, sometimes what the asking price is is just insane and especially when it comes to Anime where they cut it up in to volumes of only a few episodes and want to charge you double what a movie costs to buy.

 

At least the money I pay to Funimation and Crunchroll doesn't feel like I'm getting kneecapped in a back alley.

[mr moose]

19 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

It would be theft if pirating the content would mean that the copyright owner loses revenue or a physical item.  Seeing as the so-called "piracy" here only involves digital content, the whole "physical item" thing goes out the window already. 

If the copyright owner doesn't give you the option to buy/license this digital content, there is no lost sale, no lost revenue, and hence no piracy. 

 

You should look up intellectual property laws,  Which actually include copyright.  In the US it is a criminal offense to knowingly profit from copyrighted work (intellectual property).  The definition of theft is the taking of property without permission and the transitive verb is "to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully".  Hence there is no stipulation that a physical/material product needs to be stolen in order for it to be theft.   That is just another internet myth made up by people who don't like the realities of life.

 

19 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

It's a different thing if a service is just bad.  Even if it has buffering issues, not all the content you want or a clunky UI and ads, they are still providing copyrighted content so there is no excuse to not pay for it.  By all means torrent the stuff for convenience's sake, but do pay the license for that content. 

the problem is that using these services still constitutes piracy.  They are making money form the ads and clicks even if you find a way to pay the rights holders.  They are still pirating and making money from it and any patronage we give them further supports that activity.

 

19 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

And for the record: I have imported CDs and DVDs from Japan and the US because the music and content simply wasn't available here, not even in digital form on the various online music stores (iTunes, Google Play, Bandcamp, 7digital, etc etc). 

However some of that was at great expense.  The moment you start paying triple digits for a single CD, you do question your sanity and your commitment to actually reward artists for their work by purchasing it. 

I applaud this, I also try to pay for all the music I listen to. Sometimes its hard so I just listen to it on streaming services (that is not my preferred choices though). 

[jagdtigger]

4 hours ago, mr moose said:

hey are entitled to content without paying for

Many of us are feel like we are entitled to the resolution and full catalog whn we pay lets say for a FHD netflix sub. Reality? Limited catalog and if you dont use mspy stuff or have a rooted phone you are screwed....  Ppl pirate because legal sources are clunky, expensive, and restricted to borderline unusable levels.  Plus there are country's where there is a tax on empty media so ppl think "if im paying for it anyway why not?".  Until companies stop treating their customer base like worthless numbers on a paper nothing will change.