app store The Windows App Store is Full of Pirate Streaming Apps

[Reefa]

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In recent years streaming piracy has become a popular pastime for millions of people. A lot of this takes place through 'rogue' websites or dedicated pirate devices, which are often scolded by the movie industry. The problem is not limited to unauthorized platforms alone though, as the "trusted" Windows App Store is full of widely used pirate apps as well.

 

 

Over the past few years it has become much easier to stream movies and TV-shows over the Internet.

 

Legal streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon are booming. At the same time, however, there’s also a dark market of thousands of pirate streaming tools.

 

In recent months, Hollywood has directed many its anti-piracy efforts towards unauthorized Kodi-addons and several popular pirate streaming sites, which offer movies and TV-shows without permission. What seems to be largely ignored, however, is a “store” that hundreds of millions of people have access to; the Windows App Store.

 

When we were browsing through the “top free” apps in the Windows Store, our attention was drawn to several applications that promoted “free movies” including various Hollywood blockbusters such as “Wonder Woman,” “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” and “The Mummy.”

 

Initially, we assumed that a pirate app may have slipped passed Microsoft’s screening process. However, the ‘problem’ doesn’t appear to be isolated. There are dozens of similar apps in the official store that promise potential users free movies, most with rave reviews.

 

Some of the many pirate apps in the “trusted” store

 

 

Most of the applications work on multiple platforms including PC, mobile, and the Xbox. They are pretty easy to use and rely on the familiar grid-based streaming interface most sites and services use. Pick a movie or TV-show, click the play button, and off you go.

 

The sheer number of piracy apps in the Windows Store, using names such as “Free Movies HD,” “Free Movies Online 2020,” and “FreeFlix HQ,” came as a surprise to us. In particular, because the developers make no attempt to hide their activities, quite the opposite.

 

The app descriptions are littered with colorful language offering the latest Hollywood movies, and thousands of others, without charge. In addition, the apps display their capabilities in various screenshots, including those showing movies that are not yet available on legal streaming platforms.

 

Screenshot provided by the Windows app store    

Making matters worse, the applications show advertising as well, including high-quality pre-roll ads. Some of these appear to be facilitated through Microsoft’s own Ad Monetization platform. Other apps offer paid versions or in-app purchases to monetize their service.

 

After hours of going through the pirate app offerings, it’s clear that Microsoft’s “trusted” Windows Store is ridden with unauthorized content. Thus far we have only mentioned video, but the issue also applies to pirated music in the form of dedicated streaming and download apps.

 

Earlier this year, Microsoft signed a landmark anti-piracy agreement with several major copyright holders, to address pirate search results in the Bing search engine. The above makes clear that search results in the Microsoft Store store may require some attention too.

 

TorrentFreak reached out to Microsoft, asking for a comment on our findings, but at the time of publication we haven’t yet heard back.

 

TorrentFreak

 

 

[virge]

I worked for many tech companies in the past, the supervisors and managers were the biggest pirate collectors you ever saw. They would trade hard drives full of warez of on weekly basis and did not care about the legality of it. I have a friend who works at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, he tells me all the time, the people who work there are constantly downloading movies from torrent sites on US government workstations as they have insane download speeds, they can grab a few movies in a matter of minutes. Anti piracy groups can bitch all they want about piracy, but the biggest pirates are those work in the tech sector and the US government. Your collection of a few thousand songs and a few hundred movies and apps pales in comparison what the big dogs have.

[pc71520]

42 minutes ago, virge said:

The people who work there are constantly downloading movies from torrent sites on US government workstations

as they have insane download speeds, they can grab a few movies in a matter of minutes.

Why the Admins do Not prohibit the Torrent use on these U.S. Government workstations?

[jtmulc]

20 minutes ago, pc71520 said:

Why the Admins do Not prohibit the Torrent use on these U.S. Government workstations?

 

Because they are in on it.

 

At least it's safer than before torrents took off.  There were a few cases where sensitive blueprints and other data leaked on to the net because it was stored on a Limewire or Kazaa shared folder of a defense contractor's computer.

[jbleck]

"Apps"?... These are barely links to some website.

These need a new name...

If these are "apps", what is a "net browser" ? An "emulator" !?

 

MS should remove (or at least move to a new category) all these "disguised hyperlinks" from it's store... The app store in it's current state is crap mostly.

 

Apps --- Games --- Music --- Movies & TV --- Awww

or something...

 

[straycat19]

On 8/21/2017 at 0:37 AM, virge said:

I worked for many tech companies in the past, the supervisors and managers were the biggest pirate collectors you ever saw. They would trade hard drives full of warez of on weekly basis and did not care about the legality of it. I have a friend who works at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, he tells me all the time, the people who work there are constantly downloading movies from torrent sites on US government workstations as they have insane download speeds, they can grab a few movies in a matter of minutes. Anti piracy groups can bitch all they want about piracy, but the biggest pirates are those work in the tech sector and the US government. Your collection of a few thousand songs and a few hundred movies and apps pales in comparison what the big dogs have.

 

PROOF?  I believe your friend is a liar concerning torrents on US government workstations.  Since when is 10 gigabit an insane download speed.  Lots of people have access to 10 gigabit internet in the US and don't work at the Pentagon.  The first residential 10 gigabit internet was in October 2016, almost a year ago, at the home of James Busch in Tennessee.  Very few people have need of it or even want it, other than possibly an ego enhancing use of being able to say "My internet is faster than yours, I have 10 gigabit!"  Have your friend contact me using his official email address.  I have a friend that I am sure would be interested in talking to him.

[steven36]

22 hours ago, straycat19 said:

PROOF?

There was a study of this conducted by Torrent Freak years ago that showed many IPs  on P2P downloading  too be of The USA government but this was long before anyone had those kind of speeds also it's very risky  using a Government computer too download because they have laws that the private sector don't  .

 

CISPA Anyone? Exposing Pirates at The U.S. Government

https://torrentfreak.com/cispa-anyone-exposing-pirates-a-the-u-s-government-130422/

 

 

But as far as back when isps were doing 6 strikes this was not a law made by the Government it  was a volunteer agreement between ISPs  and. Copyright trolls  . The Army was caught pirating and got sued and lost also the Navy was caught. Just because you work for the Government don't   make you honest  many cops have pulled time for selling drugs and taking bribes and do you remember that crack head mayor that DC had that time?

 

The USA  have a pirate party for 11 years and sometimes pirates are involved  in politics .

https://blog.pirate-party.us/

I'm glad those years are behind us every bill so far too try too stop piracy have failed too pass since 1998 when they passed DMCA most laws were failed attempts when Obama was admin up in there

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_United_States

 

[Richwood]

On 8/23/2017 at 5:28 AM, straycat19 said:

 

PROOF?  I believe your friend is a liar concerning torrents on US government workstations.  Since when is 10 gigabit an insane download speed.  Lots of people have access to 10 gigabit internet in the US and don't work at the Pentagon.  The first residential 10 gigabit internet was in October 2016, almost a year ago, at the home of James Busch in Tennessee.  Very few people have need of it or even want it, other than possibly an ego enhancing use of being able to say "My internet is faster than yours, I have 10 gigabit!"  Have your friend contact me using his official email address.  I have a friend that I am sure would be interested in talking to him.

 

And the monthly cost of a 10Gbe connection? You say lots of people have access to 10Gbe but what is that as a % of all users?

[straycat19]

On 8/23/2017 at 2:33 PM, steven36 said:

I'm glad those years are behind us every bill so far too try too stop piracy have failed too pass since 1998 when they passed DMCA most laws were failed attempts when Obama was admin up in there

 

We don't need laws, all we need is an executive order signed by the President.  It can even be classified and not public knowledge.  And we have the FBI, CIA, DEA, DIA, NSA, DHS, ATF, and a few other 3 letter agencies I can't remember, so who needs laws. And then there are the 4 letter agencies, namely MPAA and RIAA.  With all these people trying to look at what is happening on the internet and applying their own interpretations of whatever document they are using as their authority there isn't a need for a law.  We are a kind of lawless society, pun intended.

[steven36]

8 hours ago, straycat19 said:

 

We don't need laws, all we need is an executive order signed by the President.  It can even be classified and not public knowledge.  And we have the FBI, CIA, DEA, DIA, NSA, DHS, ATF, and a few other 3 letter agencies I can't remember, so who needs laws. And then there are the 4 letter agencies, namely MPAA and RIAA.  With all these people trying to look at what is happening on the internet and applying their own interpretations of whatever document they are using as their authority there isn't a need for a law.  We are a kind of lawless society, pun intended.

Without laws nothing ever holds up in a  court  of law its like 6 strikes  agreement  was one of the biggest failures they ever was  ..  The president wanted too get rid of Obama care and failed  there is some things that cant be done without public knowledge when  someone gets fined or goes too jail for piracy its all over  the internet and becomes public knowledge  and you cant put people in jail or fine them without going trough a court of law .

 

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Executive Orders are issued by United States Presidents and directed towards officers and agencies of the U.S. federal government. Executive orders have the full force of law, based on the authority derived from statute or the Constitution itself. The ability to make such orders is also based on express or implied Acts of Congress that delegate to the President some degree of discretionary power (delegated legislation). Like both legislative statutes and regulations promulgated by government agencies, executive orders are subject to judicial review and may be overturned if the orders lack support by statute or the Constitution. Major policy initiatives require approval by the legislative branch, but executive orders have significant influence over the internal affairs of government, deciding how and to what degree legislation will be enforced, dealing with emergencies, waging wars, and in general fine-tuning policy choices in the implementation of broad statutes.

Even executive orders are subject too a court of law  and can be overturned  if unconstitutional. And that's what the Government  we have now has being doing is overturning many   things Obama did as they see as unconstitutional . In a prefect world were no one commits crimes we would not need laws but it want never be a prefect world  and the USA has too many Laws  and if it not for Democracy killing 1000s of bills a year we would not be able too breath without breaking a law.

 

The United States of America: 'A Nation of Laws, Not a Nation of Men'

https://patriotpost.us/commentary/26902

That is what got us in the mess were in now our former Government  was using tax payers money too send 3 letter agencies after people on the other side the world and things like going after Kim Dotcom has back fired on them.    When Bush was in there the NSA  was watching pirates but the difference was they just done it too see if they could find out  info too help with national security. Governments  that  use there law enforcement  to try and stop piracy has always been non effective  and are wasting money that could be used on national security. They need too worry about national security and let the 4 letter agencies do there job witch never accomplishes anything before another 9-11 or worse happens.