Nitro TV has as an old workmate used to say, gone the way of the water buffalo. Somehow Nitro TV, an outright piracy-based service that delivered TV shows, channels and movies to subscribers, operated for years before a judge finally shut it down.
A recent ruling against the founders, who declined to even offer up a defense against the open and shut case against them said that the “company” owed 51 million dollars in fines for willfully infringing the copyrights of almost 2,000 “works.”
The service has been under the radar in California since 2020 when ACE (The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment) first began hitting it in public.
Nitro TV is not the first nor will it be the last provider that uses other companies’ materials and even channels to build their own offerings. But users should fully expect that the services will continue to be shut down as ACE moves from one major offender to another.
How can you tell whether a service is a legitimate service or not?
Sometimes average citizens find themselves supporting parties that they would not want to associate with if they really understood what they were doing. But because of slick marketing and the fact that a service might have a website they are fooled or fool themselves into believing that what they are doing is above the board. But you can prevent yourself from participating. Part of if is recognizing the norms of how a TV service works and how they are priced.
Price Vs Content
No legal service sells you thousands of channels from all over the world. If it were possible to offer every major movie service and sports channels from all over the world without tacking on so many fees more companies would. Think about it. Why would Amazon pay millions of dollars a year for the exclusive rights to stream Thursday Night football if it could just give you access to every football game on TV in Amazon Prime? Don’t you think Apple would like to get people to sign up for Apple TV+ with every single movie that has come out for the last 20 years available all for $4.99? Do you have any earthly idea how popular something like that would be for those companies? They don’t do it because they can’t. The rights to TV shows, movies and sports costs billions. So when you see a service with thousands of channels and access to thousands of movies it’s almost definitely a piracy-based app.
It says it’s legal
Have you ever dealt with a legitimate business that worked a phrase like “completely legal” into its basic description? I doubt it. It would be like a restaurant bragging that you could never get food poisoning at their place or a construction company advertising that its buildings will not fall down or burst into flames.
Customer service
There is no phone number. If it is next to impossible to talk to a real person about the product when it has problems this should be a red flag. Real companies and services do not do their customer support via a Facebook page or an email address. And furthermore, if a company has a phone number that never seems to connect you to a person you should be suspicious.
These are just a few of the major things to look for when shopping for a service.
