Copyright holders have been trying to put a stop to online piracy for years, yet that battle is far from being won. And the cat-and-mouse game has reached new heights, because accessing illegal copies of movies and TV shows is now easier than ever.
Popular torrent sites are adopting a new technology that turns them into Netflix-like services. The Pirate Bay, which gives users access to a large number of titles that can be readily downloaded to their machines, now lets them stream videos directly from the site to a web browser. That means people won’t even have to download a movie. Instead, they’ll just stream it from the site like Netflix.
This type of online service isn’t new. Many people are already familiar with Popcorn Time, the “Netflix for pirates” app that does exactly that: offer pirates direct streams of new movies and TV shows. But a new resource that is part of the Popcorn Time initiative now lets anyone create their own Popcorn Time-like service. And as it turns out, that includes wildly popular torrent sites like The Pirate Bay.
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As Torrent Freak reports, The Pirate Bay is transforming itself into the world’s biggest streaming site, whose content can be viewed directly in the browser. This must be the studios’ worst nightmare.
The Pirate Bay and other torrent services are partnering up with Torrents-Time. Announced last week, Torrents-Time is a new plug-in for browsers that lets users stream any type of video available on torrent sites directly in a browser. This marks a huge improvement for the illegal Popcorn Time service. And it looks like more and more website are seeing the appeal of adding Torrents-Time functionality to their torrent collections.
The Pirate Bay became the first general torrent site to use Torrents-Time technology, making it even easier for Internet users to access illegal content. Rather than download torrents, which might be a complicated process for some users, people will simply be able to click a “Stream It” link as seen in the image above.
The Pirate Bay says that you’d better use a VPN service to cover your tracks, and streaming will start as soon as there are enough peers to download content. Just as Torrents-Time promised, this type of streaming also offers support for Chromecast, AirPlay and DLNA devices, as well as support for subtitles.
Following The Pirate Bay, several torrent sites are going to join this movie including Kickass Torrents, Torrentproject.se, Videomax.is, and Online.porntime.ws.
