{"id":541405,"date":"2024-06-20T07:05:48","date_gmt":"2024-06-20T05:05:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=541405"},"modified":"2024-06-20T07:18:22","modified_gmt":"2024-06-20T05:18:22","slug":"dstv-coming-for-streaming-pirates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/broadcasting\/541405-dstv-coming-for-streaming-pirates.html","title":{"rendered":"DStv coming for streaming pirates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Numerous households in South Africa using the Waka TV service could soon find themselves in the crosshairs of the law if DStv follows through on a threat to crack down on illegal pirate streaming services.<\/p>\n<p>DStv parent company MultiChoice recently scored two significant victories against people facilitating the operation of illegal streaming services in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday, 5 June 2024, it announced the arrest of a &#8220;key suspect&#8221; following the raid of a Waka TV facility in the Western Cape on 31 May.<\/p>\n<p>While there are several IPTV streaming services illegally offering live DStv channels to South Africans at a fraction of their regular prices, Waka TV has emerged as one of the most popular options.<\/p>\n<p>That arrest was followed shortly by the announcement of a second apprehension on Thursday, 6 June, of a person allegedly selling modified Android boxes used to access illegal IPTV streaming services.<\/p>\n<p>The broadcaster maintains that content piracy is a significant threat to local broadcasters and the creative industry as a whole due to its impact on revenue.<\/p>\n<p>The June 2024 arrests are not the first high-profile cases against individuals implicated in piracy of DStv&#8217;s content.<\/p>\n<p>MultiChoice released statements on various convictions of people involved in illegal streaming services over the past few years, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>November 2022<\/strong> \u2014 Capetonian Jordan Mott fined R60,000 after receiving a wholly-suspended seven-year jail sentence for infringing MultiChoice&#8217;s copyright by selling access to pirated DStv content.<\/li>\n<li><strong>November 2022<\/strong> \u2014 UK citizen Lee Whaley fined R120,000 after receiving a wholly-suspended five-year jail sentence for a similar copyright infringement offence.<\/li>\n<li><strong>October 2023<\/strong> \u2014\u00a0 Pieter Lombard fined R24,000 after receiving a wholly suspended five-year jail sentence for having 12 illegal streaming devices in his possession.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>MultiChoice is also proactively combatting piracy in the broader entertainment industry.<\/p>\n<p>MultiChoice subsidiary Irdeto is best known for its Denuvo copyright protection software, which is used in many of the world&#8217;s popular games and digital game storefronts.<\/p>\n<p>Irdeto&#8217;s broadcasting cybersecurity anti-piracy director, Frikkie Jonker, said that pirate streaming networks posed a significant threat to the commercial distribution of content.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Digital piracy, far from being a fringe activity, has become a widespread practice that transcends demographics and geographies, challenging the norms of intellectual property rights,&#8221; Jonker said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Acts of piracy, ranging from illegal streaming to black-market digital piracy, are forms of copyright infringement that undermine the efforts of content providers and the software industry.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_541421\" style=\"width: 1210px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-541421\" class=\"wp-image-541421 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Irdeto-Frikkie-Jonker.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-541421\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Frikkie Jonker, Irdeto broadcasting cybersecurity anti-piracy director<\/p><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"my-4\">More arrests coming<\/h2>\n<p>While MultiChoice has labelled the arrest of the Waka TV &#8220;key suspect&#8221; a breakthrough, the broadcaster is not stopping there.<\/p>\n<p>MultiChoice said it was working with police to investigate the &#8220;thousands of individuals&#8221; connected to the Waka TV pirate network.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Resellers supporting the pirate operation are also under investigation,&#8221; the company said. &#8220;This collaborative effort aims to dismantle the entire network and bring all perpetrators to justice.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>MulitChoice said that the South African Police Service&#8217;s Cybercrime Unit would analyse the equipment seized in the raid and analyse it to provide additional insights into the extent of the pirate network.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;More arrests are imminent,&#8221; the company said.<\/p>\n<p>Waka TV provides access to over 220 channels, many of which are legally only available on DStv, for a monthly fee of $8.00 (R144) or an annual price of $80.00 (R1,439).<\/p>\n<p>Waka TV users can either choose to pay the provider directly or work through a reseller in South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>Users can also buy a monthly voucher code from a reseller called Shenzhen Zaiyun Technology on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alibaba.com\/product-detail\/South-Africa-Waka-TV-mensal-recharge_1601181815177.html?\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chinese e-commerce platform Alibaba<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a  data-lightbox=\"post-image\" href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Alibaba-Waka-TV.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-541443 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Alibaba-Waka-TV.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"678\" srcset=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Alibaba-Waka-TV.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Alibaba-Waka-TV-600x339.jpg 600w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Alibaba-Waka-TV-800x452.jpg 800w, https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Alibaba-Waka-TV-768x434.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In addition to Waka TV, the Alibaba seller offers gift codes for accessing pirate streaming services in other countries.<\/p>\n<p>Aside from the legal ramifications of using the service, there is another danger inherent to using these streaming services.<\/p>\n<p>With the services themselves being run by criminals, there is no guarantee that they would not start deducting incorrect amounts from people&#8217;s accounts or cards.<\/p>\n<p>MyBroadband found a popular community Facebook group in Pretoria in which several complained that they were charged for a free trial of the service, and the only way they could get the charges to stop was to cancel their bank card.<\/p>\n<p>Waka TV also sells a cheaper My Family Cinema package without live TV but access to numerous copyrighted movies and TV shows on demand.<\/p>\n<p>My Family Cinema itself is a form of media server software similar to Plex.<\/p>\n<p>While neither is illegal on their own, using them to host and share copyrighted material without a licence agreement is illegal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Numerous households in South Africa using the Waka TV service could soon find themselves in the crosshairs if DStv follows through on a threat to crack down on illegal pirate streaming services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":541439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[38475,85,89240,35,6699,48496,475,125,95177],"class_list":["post-541405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-broadcasting","tag-denuvo","tag-dstv","tag-frikkie-jonker","tag-headline","tag-iptv","tag-irdeto","tag-multichoice","tag-piracy","tag-waka-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541405"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":541475,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541405\/revisions\/541475"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}