Illegal downloading has not taken a break in 2021. Disney + can attest to this, since its series like WandaVision have been on the front lines. It must be said that pirates are more hackers and inventive than ever.
With the proliferation of streaming services, the temptation that leads to piracy can sometimes be great. In 2021, the content offered in SVoD was not spared. According to the specialized site TorrentFreak, it is mainly Disney + that has suffered from the phenomenon since January. WandaVision dominates the ranking of the ten most illegally downloaded series, in which we find many other headliners of the platform with big ears such as Loki (2nd), The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (4th), Hawkeye (5th) and What If? (6th). The other victims are divided between Netflix (The witcher, Arcane), Apple TV + (Foundation), Adult Swim (Rick & morty) and Amazon Prime Video (The Wheel of Time).
To put together this ranking, TorrentFreak relied on data provided by the biggest download sites, in particular BitTorrent. The series cited have had their episodes pirated millions of times, according to the specialized site. And this in a context where the platforms are using more and more means to contain this harmful phenomenon for them, while the public authorities are also increasing the number of raids against illegal practices.
A toolkit to bypass DRM protections
It must be said that the fight against piracy is being waged on many fronts at the same time. Also at TorrentFreak, we recently learned about the uploading of tools to GitHub to capture any content on SVoD platforms. For obscure reasons of revenge against certain “lords of discord“a little too sure of themselves, the user Widevinedump decided to break the bank. His pieces of code allow to bypass the anti-piracy devices put in place by Netflix, Disney + and others, as well as the DRM protections. practice that allows you to access files, even in 4K – however, at the cost of the pirate. Needless to say, if you are caught in the bag using this technique, the legal risk is far from negligible.
In short, the authorities still have their work cut out for them to curb illegal practices. In France, from January 2022, this task will fall to Arcom, the organization created from the merger between the CSA and Hadopi. As stipulated in a decree published in the Official Journal, a blacklist of pirate sites will immediately be put in place, with the possibility of including mirror sites, which usually allow them to go under the radar.