Re: Is piracy on the way out and will VM and Sky benefit?
 

No, but it is a lead. I don't think that people who subscribe or access illegal content are as safe as they think.

I am not trying to make a case here. I am trying to make people aware of the risks they are taking.

Re: Is piracy on the way out and will VM and Sky benefit?
 

I use a VPN to access some of my corporate clients computer resources. It's a requirement of their IT departments. Using a VPN is not evidence of illegal downloading / uploading. (Though it may be)

Re: Is piracy on the way out and will VM and Sky benefit?
 

How are they going to get details of subscription from bitcoin payments?

The authorities may well get the IP address of the VPN being used for piracy but will not to be able to attach it to any one person due to no records being kept.

Re: Is piracy on the way out and will VM and Sky benefit?
 

But if these companies don't keep records, how do they know you are a member for the purpose of managing your subscription and access to the service? And although I understand that VPNs are supposed to work in such a way that you cannot be traced, I would not be that comfortable in convincing myself that there was no technical way my access to sites could not be traced through some technical means, particularly if the enforcers actually got into the company offices providing the service.

Re: Is piracy on the way out and will VM and Sky benefit?
 

It's always been a game of cat and mouse with the authorities and the 'pirates' for as long as I can remember, from floppy disks being swapped in the playground to cassette tapes copying songs, vhs tapes, CD's & DVD's, then along came the Internet and BB's with binaries, mIRC (still active arrrrr) Kazaa, Limewire, eDonkey, fast forward a little. Torrents, Kodi plug ins, android apps offering streaming.

Sometimes the pirates are on top, sometimes the authorities. The point I'm making is that it ain't ever going to stop. It's like playing Whack A mole.

There is a school of thought that suggests if things were priced somewhat more reasonably, then the vast majority of pirating would simply evaporate as people begrudge being ripped off.

Another issue in this global market place is availability. Quite simply some titles are never available through legal means or people have to subscribe to multiple media sources costing hundreds of pounds.

Re: Is piracy on the way out and will VM and Sky benefit?
 

The companies manage the subscription via the password, the password is valid for the length of subscription and can be renewed via it.

They don't even have my email address.

Re: Is piracy on the way out and will VM and Sky benefit?
 

It sounds really secure but I would not be happy to rely on what VPN sites say about anonymity.

A quick search revealed this from the 'golden frog' site, for example:

If a VPN provider kept absolutely no logs, they wouldn’t be able to:

- Offer plans with limits on GB usage or per user basis

- Limit VPN connections to 1, 3 or 5 on a per user basis

- Troubleshoot your connection or offer support for server-side problems

- Handle your DNS requests when using the VPN service. They might rely on a 3rd Party DNS provider that logs DNS requests

- Prevent abuse, such as spammers, port scanners and DDOS to protect their VPN service and their users.

Given the expertise we are witnessing of what hackers are actually capable of these days, I would not be at all confident that a future clamp down would not affect me if I used an illegal site to gain access to content that I should not be able to see. Sooner or later, the powers that be will catch up, and the huge amount of money being lost to content providers will be the driver to achieving this.

Re: Is piracy on the way out and will VM and Sky benefit?
 

So much for golden frog.

Re: Is piracy on the way out and will VM and Sky benefit?
 

:D

Re: Is piracy on the way out and will VM and Sky benefit?
 

Indeed, users of public WiFi services often use VPN for security purposes. Others use VPN to access geographically restricted services as well, or US websites that block European users and vice versa.

Re: Is piracy on the way out and will VM and Sky benefit?
 

Speaking from personal experience of my Family & Friends, the cost of one service (such as Netflix) is not the issue.

The problem is that to be able to watch everything you actually want to see, you need Netflix, Prime, Sky and some US ones we cannot even access in the UK.

If you only needed to pay for one source, you would eliminate a lot of illegal sharing.
Thats [part of] the appeal of torrent sites - you only need to go to one source for all your programmes.

Re: Is piracy on the way out and will VM and Sky benefit?
 

Although once in a while with torrenting I get an email off Sky advising the content is being shared illegally naming the title of what I downloaded. Mostly just TV episodes.

Re: Is piracy on the way out and will VM and Sky benefit?
 

Of course, that's where Sky, Virgin Media, et al can help. If they provided bundles of SVOD services the same way as they do with scheduled pay tv channels, you would only have to pay one subscription for the lot, and presumably at a cheaper price than if you subscribed to each service separately.

---------- Post added at 18:51 ---------- Previous post was at 18:48 ----------

I think you should be careful, Stephen. Clearly, they can identify you, and although to date they have been concentrating on the big players, sooner or later, they will go for the punters. The compensation they will be after will be considerable and will far outweigh the benefits of free or discounted viewing you have been able to access to date.

Re: Is piracy on the way out and will VM and Sky benefit?
 

What do you expect if you don't use a VPN?

If you do use one I would seriously consider changing to a different one.

Re: Is piracy on the way out and will VM and Sky benefit?
 

That's right, it's only matter of time before the 'speculative invoicers' return, I wouldn't torrent anything without a VPN