One of the major pirate streaming services Boss IPTV had been busted by the Faridabad Cyber Crime Police recently. Based on a complaint filed by YuppTV, a South Asian OTT platform, the police raided a company under the name of Rhysley private limited. Boss IPTV is accused of illegally streaming Indian premium content to users living overseas.
Investigations revealed that Boss IPTV belongs to a group of piracy streaming services like Indian IPTV, Tashan IPTV, Punjabi IPTV, Brampton IPTV, Boss Entertainment, Guru IPTV, etc. who use the same Chat provider and hosting provider. Further investigations reported that Boss IPTV is registered under the name of Mr. Harpreet Randhawa who also had various companies like Tipsy Time, Tashan IPTV, VOIS, Server Center limited, and Rhysley Couture Pvt Ltd.
Based on the complaint, the Cyber-crime police raided two locations of Rhysley Pvt ltd and confiscated systems and other evidence pertaining to the sale of illegal set-top boxes and premium content streaming. Police arrested 6 employees from the company including the prime business partner of the accused. All the accused were presented before the judge who dismissed their bail plea after listening to arguments from both sides.
These piracy networks offer thousands of channels for a very low price, which is the primary reason why users tend to subscribe to these services. All the companies illegally intercept the broadcaster signals from various service providers and stream them in the US and other countries. It was reported that the networks penetrated 80% of the market and incur revenue losses of around 200-300 million dollars every year for the content providers.
YuppTV’s CEO Mr. Uday Reddy stated that the struggle due to piracy remained constant during the last seven years. The piracy networks sell android boxes that stream major Indian and international channels illegally. Major networks like Star and Colors are also in support of this crusade against Piracy Networks. The identification of companies like Rhysley by YuppTV has been a hugely positive step for the industry in the fight against piracy.
Concern for user safety was also raised during the fiasco. While the piracy networks offer content at low prices, the fact that the services are not fully secure remains consistent and this may put the user at risk of losing their personal data. The apps might also invite malware into the systems making the users vulnerable to data theft and the risk of hacking.
