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Piracy

Streameast, World's Largest Illegal Sports Streaming Platform, Shut Down in Sting (nytimes.com) 47

Posted by msmash from the end-of-road dept.
Streameast -- the world's largest illegal sports streaming platform -- has been shut down after a year long investigation, according to a leading United States-based anti-piracy organisation. From a report: The network of 80 unauthorised domains generated 1.6billion combined visits over the past year, providing free access to global sports fixtures, including Europe's top football leagues and competitions, such as the Premier League and Champions League, as well as the NFL, NBA and MLB.

The Athletic has been informed by the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE) -- a coalition of 50 media and entertainment organisations including Amazon, Apple TV+, Netflix and Paramount -- that an operation alongside Egyptian law enforcement officials took place on Sunday August 24 to disrupt Streameast's dominant position in the illegal streaming market.

Traffic to the site reached 136million average monthly visits, with domains primarily originating from the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, the Philippines and Germany.

Streameast, World's Largest Illegal Sports Streaming Platform, Shut Down in Sting More | Reply

Streameast, World's Largest Illegal Sports Streaming Platform, Shut Down in Sting

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  • It will just be replaced (Score:3)

    by skam240 ( 789197 ) on Wednesday September 03, 2025 @10:50AM (#65635804)

    From what I understand it's still a total cluster fuck to watch pro sports. Until they fix that problem a replacement to this site is practically assured of popping up.

    • They will never fix it. Every square inch of video has advertisements in one form or another and a football game is supposed to be 60 minutes of play time? They somehow expand that into 4 hours of broadcast time.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        Every square inch of video has advertisements in one form or another and a football game is supposed to be 60 minutes of play time? They somehow expand that into 4 hours of broadcast time.

        Oh, it's outrageous. Shit like this is why even after having played multiple sports all the way through high school growing up I don't follow pro sports. The TV viewing experience is just awful.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        They will never fix it. Every square inch of video has advertisements in one form or another and a football game is supposed to be 60 minutes of play time? They somehow expand that into 4 hours of broadcast time.

        Actually for sports like the NFL, there are "referees" who are there to basically say when the networks are airing ads so the game is paused while that is on. When the ad break is over, then play resumes. When play is stopped they usually cut in to indicate an ad break so rulings can be made, but th

      • Without the 4 hours of commercials, TV rights would be near worthless (like WNBA worthless) and the players instead of working the game footage during the week, would have to have real jobs.

    • Try watching one of the free college football games on ESPN. Trying to figure out which scripts need to run to view the broadcast is a cluster fuck.

      Even if you think you have it figured out you may get some bogus message about the cert not being valid.

      As I said, these are for the free games, the ones being broadcast on ABC (ESPN and ABC are owned by the same company) so you don't need to sign up for anything. I can only image how difficult it is for the ones you have to have an account to view.

      This is the

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by davidwr ( 791652 )

        Try watching one of the free college football games on ESPN

        Easy: Find a friend who has a cable TV subscription with ESPN. Get him to invite you to his house to watch college football.

        Oh wait, you meant watching it the new way, not on old-school-cable-tv. Gotcha.

      • This is the 21st century. There should be no reason someone can't click on a video and have it play without needing to enable 20+ scripts and 30+ css/xml sheets.

        If you're watching it from the legitimate source you don't have to.

        • This is from the ESPN site itself. Not sure how much more legitimate you can get when they're the ones broadcasting the game.

          • No content is free. You pay by watching their ads. If your goal is to watch without watching their ads, then you are going to have to jump through hoops.

            I'm not defending it. It just is.

        • Not true. Anyone with ad blocked has to figure out exactly what disabled teachers is required to stream from any site, legit or not.

    • What's cluster fuck about?

      You pay to watch. You watch.

      Sometimes, you don't even have to pay to watch.

      The biggest problem with watching pro sports is that there is almost never a way to access a second audio program that has just the sounds of the game, without any announcers babbling on with their stupid bullshit about whatever it is that they want to talk about. Fuck all that. Laws just be passed to require a SAP free of announcers. Congress should DO SOMETHING. Let me know if it does.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by GuB-42 ( 2483988 )

        It depends. Sometimes it is just that: you pay, you watch.

        Sometimes part of the matches are covered by A, and part by B, with some covered by both, but some are exclusive to C, but C only has these matches. Oh, and C is only available as part of an internet package while A requires special software unless you have a compatible smart TV. Usually, it is not that bad, but it happens.

        As for the sound, just turn it off, what are the "sounds of the games" anyways? A stadium is not a movie set or a concert hall, t

        • It depends. Sometimes it is just that: you pay, you watch.

          Sometimes part of the matches are covered by A, and part by B, with some covered by both, but some are exclusive to C, but C only has these matches. Oh, and C is only available as part of an internet package while A requires special software unless you have a compatible smart TV. Usually, it is not that bad, but it happens.

          Seems like you just need to subscribe to a lot of stuff, or watch less stuff.

          As for the sound, just turn it off...

          Then I wouldn't hear anything.

          what are the "sounds of the games" anyways?

          What you get if you were in the stadium, minus the conversation of all the drunk assholes seated near you.

          A stadium is not a movie set or a concert hall, the ability to get a good soundscape are limited. Often, you can't hear what happens on the field at all.

          It is not about clearly hearing what is going on on the field, or some kind of super awesome Dolby Ass Kicker Plus Oh My God My Penis Is Having An Auditory Orgasm experience. It's just about what you would hear if you were attending live.

          But here is a trick if you don't like a particular announcer and there is radio coverage: turn off the sound on your TV and listen to the radio instead.

          Then I would have to find a radio. I have one in my car, but

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        As I understand it the licencing rights to local games is still a mess amongst other things. As I said though, I don't watch pro sports so if you'd like to debate this you'll need to find one of the many sports fans I've seen complaining about this fact.

        The biggest problem with watching pro sports is that there is almost never a way to access a second audio program that has just the sounds of the game, without any announcers babbling on with their stupid bullshit about whatever it is that they want to talk about. Fuck all that. Laws just be passed to require a SAP free of announcers. Congress should DO SOMETHING. Let me know if it does.

        Not sure about the need for laws to be passed but this is one of several reasons I don't watch pro sports on TV. I wouldn't mind a little commentary here or there but the non stop chatter is awful.

        • Not sure about the need for laws to be passed but this is one of several reasons I don't watch pro sports on TV. I wouldn't mind a little commentary here or there but the non stop chatter is awful.

          Well, to be fair, I was mocking people who sincerely believe that the govt should solve all of their first world problems. I don't REALLY think laws should be passed to address this issue. I do wish all football games were broadcast with a SAP for "Sounds Of The Game", as they would be a lot more enjoyable.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by skam240 ( 789197 )

            Well, to be fair, I was mocking people who sincerely believe that the govt should solve all of their first world problems. I don't REALLY think laws should be passed to address this issue. I do wish all football games were broadcast with a SAP for "Sounds Of The Game", as they would be a lot more enjoyable.

            Ha, that's funny because I was thinking what you're saying here after I posted. Having talked to you a few times I feel that would have been an odd thing for you to say seriously :)

            My bad.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        Oops, sorry. I had thought I had said I didn't watch pro sports in my original post but I didn't actually say that.

      • If I could just pay a single amount and get all access to every game, sure. But that's not how it works and don't even get me started on "markets". You can pay for CBS sports and still be screwed over if you want to watch an out of market team. For instance, I live in San Diego but like Denver teams. Yeah, good luck trying to even PAY money to see the games.

    • From what I understand it's still a total cluster fuck to watch pro sports. Until they fix that problem a replacement to this site is practically assured of popping up.

      Is it fuck. It only is for those who don't want to use legitimate ways to view it, i.e subscribe to the service showing it.

    • As broadcasting has become more segmented for sports, i watch less. I enjoy watching football and hockey on TV but I'm not going to pay for 4 different streaming services to catch games. Luckily my work paid phone plan includes MAX which helps out some.
    • You are correct and there are already many other alternatives to Streameast. The root cause is, like usual, greed. Players want more money, owners want more money... where does that come from? TV rights being sold for even high prices to streaming services.
    • Indeed! They will never whack all the moles.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      From what I understand it's still a total cluster fuck to watch pro sports. Until they fix that problem a replacement to this site is practically assured of popping up.

      Yep, I tried to find out how much it would cost to watch NBA from the UK, it was easier to find a pirate stream. The big problem is that even then it's hugely impractical to watch it live as a 9PM Pacific game is 5 AM UK time. What I really wanted was the ability to watch a game the next morning.

  • Pretty sure the largest illegal sports streaming platform is actually Youtube.

  • I'm sure we won't need to wait very long before Streamwest, Streamnorth....

    • I'm sure we won't need to wait very long before Streamwest, Streamnorth....

      Yup. Stream south south west. Stream east north east. Etc.

  • I'm watching the Nationals - Marlins game on it right now.
  • Many streameast sites are listed in gostreameast.link and they seem to be working. Streisand effect, anyone?

  • alongside Egyptian law enforcement officials

    You're on the list to get some F-35s.

  • Looks like it is working - at least for MLB

  • I cut the cord when the Chargers went to LA. Haven't watched a Charger game since, nor do I get much OTA, but I was still watching a game a week. As I'm not willing to pay the NFL bookoo bux (how many hundreds is it now?) and I can't access games otherwise I guess they lost me forever.

  • MLB stream PULL the commercials and broadcast white sound, terminating a major source of income for the teams and the league. It is not about money... they want control. It would be no problem to pay a few dollars to watch games on streams. The the DRM and the personal information that they collect on you that makes it unacceptable.

    They are cutting off their own air supply. If kids don't watch games, there is no future fans.

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