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Online piracy continues to be a major problem for rightsholders, especially those who rely on exclusive live streaming content. This challenge is worsened by dedicated sharing communities on Telegram, Discord, and elsewhere, which can be harder to spot. To tackle this, the Czech anti-piracy company Warezio is offering the public rewards for snitching on pirates through the new gamified "Online Hunter" portal.
Anti-piracy reporting tools have existed for years, but generally speaking, there is little interest from the public to expose pirates.
The Business Software Alliance previously offered people hard cash in exchange for tips, which helped, but there are other potential reward options too.
Online Pirate Hunters
The Czech anti-piracy company Warezio, which works for various international rightsholders, believes that it can motivate people to report pirate streaming links through a gamified experience. The company recently launched a new platform, inviting the public to help spot links to pirated content.
The ‘Online Hunter’ portal effectively turns people into pirate ‘hunters.’ As the name suggests, users of the site can report pirate links on various platforms and earn points when these are reviewed and approved.
There’s a wide variety of content that users can report, ranging from blockbuster movies to current live streaming events.
Report a Link
Newly discovered live streaming links have the most value, while previously reported content doesn’t bring in many points. With sufficient points, users can then buy vouchers for online streaming services such as Netflix, HBO, or Oktagon MMA, which is an official partner.
The new portal has not been widely promoted because Warezio prefers a soft launch. However, the first links have already been submitted. This is in part due to targeted promotion, which showed a banner to a select group of Oktagon streamers during the last event.
Banner for ‘Online Hunters’
‘Online Hunter’ is currently targeted at countries in Eastern and Central Europe, but Warezio’s Jakub Hájek informs TorrentFreak that he hopes to expand it to Western Europe in the near future. That might also open the door to more rightsholders, he says, as “reporting to the authorities” is generally frowned upon in Eastern Europe.
Pirates Knock Out?
At the moment, Oktagon MMA is the only named partner. The MMA organization operates based on a pay-per-view model, which makes it more vulnerable to piracy than traditional VOD platforms.
“The financial damages caused by piracy are noticeable,” Oktagon’s Martin Šteso tells TorrentFreak
Šteso explains that the company previously relied on its social media team to track down infringing streams. However, that approach had significant limits in scale and reach, especially when dealing with a range of semi-private communities on services such as Discord.
By crowdsourcing detection of piracy threats that automated tools typically miss, Oktagon hopes to fight back against pirate streaming.
“The main goal is to uncover piracy groups, particularly those operating on platforms like Discord, that are otherwise incredibly difficult to detect. Because many of these communities are private and restricted to smaller circles, manual detection is nearly impossible,” Šteso notes.
Points, Levels and Leaderboards
‘Online Hunter’ currently supports reporting links on nine platforms: Discord, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, TikTok, Twitter/X, YouTube, and ok.ru. As users report more links, they can reach new levels and climb the public leaderboard as their approved points increase.
Whether this gamified approach will appeal to the public at large has yet to be seen. Currently, there are just a few active flaggers on the platform, according to the leaderboard.
The Leaderboard
Warezio certainly believes in the project, and the company informs us that more rightsholders are welcome to get in touch if they actively would like to participate.
Oktagon MMA hopes that ‘Online Hunter’ will ultimately become a household tool to identify hidden pirate communities. Thus far, the MMA organization has promoted ‘Online Hunter’ to a select group of users, but a broader promotion is also being considered.
Whether crowdsourced human intelligence is a durable addition to automated anti-piracy tools remains to be seen, but a project like Online Hunters will certainly get people talking.
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