Last week the news broke that the Emmys will make the switch from physical DVD-screeners to online streaming screeners in 2020.

This transition comes with a lot of benefits. For one, it’s much cheaper for companies to put movies on an online screening platform than to manufacture and ship hundreds of thousands of DVDs.

Another advantage, according to some industry insiders, is that it’s easier to keep online screeners out of the hands of pirates.

In recent years there haven’t been many TV-screener leaks. However, if DVD screeners are eventually phased out by other awards shows, such as the Oscars, could that be the end of the screener season madness among pirates?

That’s highly doubtful. While it’s certainly true that online copies can’t get lost in the mail, there are other vulnerabilities. A login and password are easily shared and, once in, pirates can usually find a way to rip of capture a movie of TV-show. That’s what they’re good at, after all.

This is corroborated by pirate release group EVO. Short for EVOLUTiON, EVO has been around for years. The group has standing when it comes to screeners. Just a few weeks ago it leaked “Ralph Breaks The Internet,” one of the first DVD screeners this year.

According to EVO, online screeners are not necessarily more secure and the opposite may be true in some cases. The group mentions that it had access to a digital screener account last year which provided surprisingly little protection.

“We had access to digital screeners and they are indeed easy to leak. The DRM on it is a joke. We had an account last year with three screeners on it and they were pretty much MP4 ready to encode,” the EVO team informs TorrentFreak.

The group adds that online screeners have already leaked in the past, mentioning last year’s release of “Call Me By Your Name” as an example.

The Academy Awards have experimented with online streaming, but there is no sign of a switch yet.  The release group noticed, however, that DVD screener security has been increased. At least, for the disc they worked on.

“From what I’ve seen, doing Ralph, the DVD protection on it was increased, since it was a nightmare to crack,” EVO’s team member tells us.

The group believes that the current security measures around DVD screeners releases work fairly well. After all, there haven’t been too many DVD screener leaks this year. It further notes that the quality of screeners is intentionally kept low to decrease their value, in case they leak.

Legitimate screeners (for the SAG awards)

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Whether online or physical screeners are more secure ultimately depends on the type of protection measures that are implemented for each.

A highly secure DVD with watermarks is more secure than an online stream that’s only protected with a login, and a highly secure online streaming platform is more secure than an unprotected DVD. But none of these are 100% leak-resistant.

The safest conclusion is that piracy will likely remain a problem, no matter what the distribution platform is.

To get more perspectives we reached out to a variety of movie industry insiders, including those who offer secure online screening platforms. Unfortunately, none of them answered, suggesting that it’s a sensitive issue.

Based on previous coverage on the matter, we found that the movie industry hasn’t made its mind up on the security issue either.

Anthony Anderson, director of film security for Universal Pictures, previously told Variety that digital screeners will present new threats, which could make them less secure.

“Before, if you shipped a DVD to the home, you had to steal it from the doorstep. Now you can sit at home and attack the site, which presents a host of issues,” Anderson said.

The Television Academy’s decision to make Emmy screeners streaming only doesn’t come as a surprise though. In recent years many insiders have called for a transition and the major studios, including Warner Bros., have online “FYC” platforms in place already.

As far as we know, security concerns are not the main driver behind the switch. Variety’s coverage shows that streaming is simply seen as more practical, modern, and much cheaper by many. The downside is that not everyone likes streaming and that it’s harder to make titles stand out.

As for EVO, they don’t believe that the Academy Awards will follow the Emmys’ example anytime soon.  That said, the group prefers not to get involved with these type of releases too often, as it’s a security threat for them as well.

“Usually, we choose to stay out of the DVDSCR because it’s something that draws to much heat, and the studios are not happy about it. Every year people who actually leak them are arrested. No matter how good you are to erase the watermarks. There is always a trace,” EVO notes.

That’s true for both DVD and online screeners…

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After more than ten years in the game, RARBG is one of the most popular and resilient torrent sites on the Internet today.

The site took fourth spot in our 2019 list of most popular torrent sites, a position that has been earned through regular high-quality releases of everything from movies and TV shows through to music, games and adult content.

During the past few days, however, the site took a somewhat unusual step that has had some users scratching their heads. A quick look inside some new video torrents released by the site reveals not only the content itself, but also an initially mysterious file called ‘ RARBG_DO_NOT_MIRROR.exe’.

As a general rule, when video torrents contain an .exe file there is a need for caution. These executables can contain anything and in some cases may be malicious, such as a virus or malware. As a result, experienced torrent users never click them but the same can’t be said about novices.

In this instance, however, there is nothing for regular users to be worried about. Renaming the file to give it a .txt extension reveals that this is just a text file that displays the following information:

“This is not an .exe file. This is just a placeholder to prevent mirroring over other public sites.”

So if it’s just a text file, why would RARBG include it in their torrents? The explanation, it turns out, is pretty straightforward and not directed at users at all.

While the site makes thousands of releases every week, these are easily mirrored on other platforms. Since .exe files are viewed with suspicion by tools used to automate the crawling of the site (most sites don’t allow .exe files to be uploaded in video categories), their inclusion means less diffusion of RARBG torrents to other platforms.

“[The .exe file] is included in torrent files to stop distribution to other public sites,” RARBG confirms in a new addition to its FAQ.

Interestingly, the “.exe” experiment is also having a positive effect on the health of torrents tracked by RARBG. According to the site’s operator, the inclusion of the .exe file in torrents “reduces the average hit&run [people who grab a torrent and then fail to seed] by 35% !”

As mentioned earlier, there is nothing malicious with the .exe file as far as users are concerned and, as the site points out, people can easily ‘untick’ the file in their torrent client and it won’t even be downloaded.

That being said, their presence won’t be welcomed by people looking to mirror RARBG torrents elsewhere. Since the traffic to such platforms could be negatively affected following the rejection of torrents containing an .exe, the job of their operators becomes much more difficult.

Finally, it’s worth reiterating that real .exe files in any torrent – or indeed anywhere on the Internet – should always be approached with caution.

Running these kinds of files without due diligence can be a risky proposition so the default actions should always be to run up-to-date anti-virus/anti-malware software and/or ignore and delete unexpected content, just to be on the safe side.

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Preventing or at least reducing the flood of pirated copies of movies and TV shows online remains a priority for entertainment industry companies everywhere.

In the current environment, most public activity is aimed at distributors, such as torrent and streaming platforms. However, hitting those who supply content from higher up the chain is a long-standing but lesser-publicized strategy.

News coming in from Italy indicates that the authorities there have been looking closely at players who they consider to be particularly big fish.

The Guardia di Finanza of Pesaro, a department under Italy’s Minister of Economy, reports a long and complex investigation to target the individuals behind a release group they name as ‘FREE / iNCOMiNG’.

Operating between 2010 to 2016, the group is identified as “one of the main groups operating on the Italian and international scenes.” According to the GdF, ‘FREE / iNCOMiNG’ collaborated with foreign groups to which it supplied copies of movies recorded in Italian cinemas, reportedly accounting for 66% of copies of such movies made available online.

The investigation sought to link camcorded copies of movies with players in the group, an effort that was carried out by the Public Prosecutor of Pesaro in coordination with investigators at the Federation for the Protection of Audiovisual and Multimedia Content (FAPAV).

This led to the identification of four suspects with house searches subsequently executed in four regions of Italy (Marche, Piedmont, Lombardy and Puglia) and the seizure of equipment including PCs, smartphones, and media containing an estimated 800,000 files.

“The subsequent analysis of what was seized allowed us to discover that the group members, after the acquisition of the successful films and the major television series broadcast on pay-per-view channels, took care of the assembly and coding for upload on powerful servers,” the investigators reveal.

“The modified files were advertised on websites that, upon payment, facilitated illegal downloading. The group in question also established significant contacts and collaborations with other foreign release groups, thus succeeding in diversifying the sources of income connected to the illicit copies.”

Anti-piracy group FAPAV welcomed the results of the investigation, particularly in respect of the disruption to the supply of movies illegally recorded in theaters.

“According to our estimates, as far as the first cinematographic releases are concerned, in nine cases out of ten the audio and video source of the pirated files is represented by the unauthorized recordings that take place by ‘release groups’ in cinemas,” said Federico Bagnoli Rossi, General Secretary FAPAV.

“Camcording is, therefore, the primary source of piracy, a phenomenon that should not be underestimated considering the huge damage it causes the entire sector. Such recordings, in fact, are usually realized in the very first days following the release of films in theaters or when the works are in their initial phase of exploitation.”

The cases of the four men, whose identities have not been revealed, are said to have been handed to the authorities for action under relevant laws. At least as far as public piracy release databases reveal, iNCOMiNG ceased releases under that specific name around 16 months ago.

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The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has been protecting the interests of Hollywood since its formation in 1922.

It generates most of its revenue from contributions by the six major Hollywood studios – Disney, Paramount, Sony, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, and Warner Bros.

But now, in a historic move, a significant new member has joined the movie and TV show trade association.

“On behalf of the MPAA and its member companies, I am delighted to welcome Netflix as a partner,” MPAA Chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin said in a statement.

“All of our members are committed to pushing the film and television industry forward, in both how we tell stories and how we reach audiences. Adding Netflix will allow us to even more effectively advocate for the global community of creative storytellers, and I look forward to seeing what we can all achieve together.”

The addition of Netflix to the MPAA fold doesn’t come as a complete surprise.

As reported in 2018, the MPAA faces a shrinking budget following Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox. Despite reporting revenues of $57m (including studio contributions of almost $50m) in its latest public filings, that figure was down from $73 million in the previous year.

Disney previously promised to pay Fox’s MPAA contributions for a year after the finalization of the deal but that still had the potential to leave the MPAA down one-sixth in membership dues. Presuming that the streaming service will pay an equal share, Netflix’s membership of the trade group should go a long way to filling the Fox-shaped hole in its budget.

The addition of Netflix to the MPAA is groundbreaking on a few fronts.

Perhaps most significantly, Netflix isn’t a Hollywood studio, so its membership breaks with almost a century of tradition. And, of course, this is the first time that a dedicated streaming service has become so closely aligned with the interests of the 97-year-old organization.

“Joining the Motion Picture Association further exemplifies our commitment to ensuring the vibrancy of these creative industries and the many talented people who work in them all over the world,” said Ted Sarandos, Netflix Chief Content Officer.

“We look forward to supporting the association team and their important efforts.”

While Netflix settles in as the MPAA’s newest member, the streaming service is no stranger to working with the major Hollywood studios in respect of content protection.

In 2017, Netflix was revealed as one of the founding members of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment  (ACE), a global anti-piracy group featuring the studios of the MPAA and dozens of other companies. As a key member, Netflix was granted full voting rights on ACE business, including the approval of initiatives and public policy, anti-piracy strategy, budget-related matters, plus approval of legal action.

If the MPAA is looking to expand further still, it’s possible that Amazon could yet join the fold. Not only is Amazon a founding member of ACE, but the company was also touted as a potential new MPAA member during 2018.

Amazon, however, is still a member of the Internet Association, a pro-tech group organization that Netflix parted company with recently, just in advance of joining the MPAA.

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