Lessons from Growing a Piracy Streaming Site

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Sentencing, bug bounty, and legal context

  • Commenters note that a remark to MLB about negative PR turned a potential vulnerability reward into perceived extortion.
  • Some argue the bug was far more valuable than publicly portrayed and that the media narrative around it was oversimplified.
  • Non‑US readers are surprised at a three‑year sentence for this versus comparatively light sentences for violent crimes in some European systems; others think short sentences for violent crimes are “the crazy side.”

Why users pay for pirate sports streams

  • Many say paid pirate IPTV offers:
    • Lower cost and no blackouts.
    • Unified access to multiple leagues/sports in one app.
    • No DRM quirks, device blacklisting, geofencing, or forced reauthentication.
  • Legal services are criticized for fragmented rights, region locks, device restrictions, concurrent‑screen limits, and expiring access to purchased content.

Ads, adblockers, and the “cost” of piracy

  • Free pirate sites are often ad‑ridden, with sketchy networks and anti‑adblock measures.
  • Some insist a “good” adblocker plus script blocking makes them usable; others report sites breaking entirely.
  • Several note you always “pay” for piracy: with money, time, risk, or effort (e.g., private trackers, unstable live streams).

Popularity and operations of IPTV piracy

  • Pirated IPTV is described as common in the Middle East and Europe: WhatsApp/Discord brokers, cheap annual accounts, tens of thousands of channels.
  • Discussion touches on OPSEC (Tor, patience, avoiding leaks) and the idea that in less developed countries, enforcement often centers on bribes or moral content bans rather than foreign copyrights.

Customer experience and support

  • Multiple comments say illegal services often have better UX, catalogs, and even customer support than legal providers.
  • Users praise features like powerful search/filtering, lack of friction, and human, responsive operators.

Ethics, intellectual property, and terminology

  • Heated debate over whether copying is “theft” or a distinct wrong (copyright infringement).
  • Some reframe “piracy” as heroic unrestriction of information; others push back, emphasizing creators’ right to monetize work.

Growth tactics and Reddit spam

  • The operator describes a “growth hack” where users were prompted to reply on relevant Reddit threads with referral links.
  • Several readers view this as spam/astroturfing that erodes trust; others note the operator claims to have enforced tasteful, non‑spammy behavior and monitored referrals.

Operator’s reflections: trust, communication, and “saying no”

  • The operator emphasizes informal, personal emails (never noreply), self‑deprecating tone, and inviting direct replies as ways to build trust in a shady space.
  • “Saying no” to user requests (e.g., PPV fights, college sports, generic IPTV) is framed as critical to focus, ethics (not profiting off children), and maintaining consistent quality.
  • On post‑prison life, they discuss ethics as ongoing self‑tests, non‑linear rehabilitation, and the power of publicly owning one’s story (e.g., proactively disclosing their past to employers).

Piracy ecosystem structure

  • Some point out many “free” streaming fronts are just skins over a small set of large aggregators with open APIs, ads embedded at the player level, and possible revenue‑sharing with frontends.
  • This lowers the technical barrier to launching a pirate site and supports emerging “piracy as a service” models.