Openload and Streamango have been shut down by an anti-piracy settlement. The two sites had previously thrived at a time when subscription streaming has become more popular than ever, with costs for the numerous services continuing to change.
Illegal torrent and streaming sites have existed for decades now, having made their mark long before legal streaming services were even an option. Sites like LimeWire, Demonoid and The Pirate Bay have all been the focus of efforts by the relevant authorities at one time or another, with the pressure of anti-piracy organizations ultimately becoming far too great for most well known illegal sites to stay alive. Though pirated television and film sites continue to exist today – and in some cases, still manage to thrive, the battle by government organizations and Hollywood studios to shut them down seems to be never ending. The issue has pestered studios over the years, with high profile films like American Gangster, The Revenant, The Hateful Eight and even Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith all having been leaked online prior to or at the same time as their intended theatrical releases.
The most recent sites to be struck down by anti-piracy settlements are Openload and Streamango. According to Deadline, both sites were forced to terminate their operations after reaching agreements with a coalition of Hollywood studios and content providers. While the exact specifics of these agreements have not been made public, the end result is that both sites no longer function as portals to illegal content and that “a significant damage award” will be paid by Openload and Streamango to The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment, which is made up of members of the MPAA, as well as other international companies.
Openload in particular made headlines worldwide earlier this year when the final episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones was released four hours early in Germany on Amazon Prime Video, which then found its way to the illegal download site. As one of the more popular file-hosting sites on the internet, Openload has been responsible for generating more online traffic than the likes of legitimate streaming services such as Hulu and HBO Go. The site reportedly averaged some 65 million visits per month. In addition to the seizure and subsequent termination of Streamango and Openload by ACE, numerous domains related to Openload, such as oload.cc and oload.club have also been shut down, and Openload operated more than 1,000 servers in Europe.
It is also important to note that while Openload offered content that was obtained illegally, it also did provide some legal content. But of course, it was not the legal content that was causing the problem for ACE. And while there are numerous moral arguments to be made against sites like Openload and Streamango, their existence gives ample evidence to the fact that even in today’s age of streaming services, people still want access to what they want, when they want it – something that copyright laws, licensing issues and region codes are all too often standing in the way of.
Source: Deadline