4 Attachment(s)
ACE/MPA Target VivaTV, StreamTape & VidSrc: A Peek Under the Hood
Recent DMCA subpoena applications filed by the Motion Picture Association at a court in the U.S. target IPTV, web streaming, and hosting platforms receiving between 80 and 100 million visits per month. They include Android app VivaTV and well-known video hosting services StreamTape and VidSrc. While the headline traffic figures are impressive, other details warrant a closer look.
For those trying to avoid identification by anti-piracy groups with considerable but nevertheless finite resources, staying out of reach is certainly possible.
Over the past six years, after unmasking at least dozens but potentially hundreds of site operators, the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment has shown that the opposite is possible too.
Signs that ACE and the MPA are taking an interest in particular platforms appear in various forms, but few are as verifiably reliable as DMCA subpoena applications filed at U.S. courts. A new batch filed by the MPA contains familiar and less familiar names, so taking a closer look is always worthwhile.
Popular Android App VivaTV
The initial target in the first application is the Android-based movie and TV show streaming app, VivaTV. ACE identifies vivatv.io/download as the download URL for v1.6.2, but currently the site only serves v1.5.5 as standard. Nevertheless, ACE is absolutely right; a short roam around reveals the availability of several VivaTV versions, plus a bunch of other apps for download too.
Users of VivaTV and similar tools will be aware that videos listed in the app are stored on third-party hosting platforms. In the application, MPA/ACE cite VivaTV as an infringer of their members’ rights in the movie ‘Frozen’ before identifying where the movie was sourced. In this case the source is StreamTape.com, a platform with over a quarter billion visits every year.
The same method is applied to the movie Minions: Rise of Gru; while it plays inside VivaTV, hosting platform VidSrc.me is listed as the source.
Significant traffic has made StreamTape a prime target for MPA/ACE, as evidenced by referrals to watch lists maintained by the EU and United States on multiple occasions.
Other than that, fairly standard stuff as DMCA subpoenas go, at least until reports of a different nature catch the eye.
62 Security Vendors Say VivaTV is Not Malicious
There’s no shortage of blogs providing information on the latest ‘pirate’ apps, including up-to-date version data and even direct download links. Some even run Android APK files through services like VirusTotal before posting the results to show that apps under review are ‘safe’.
As the image below shows, someone has already tested VivaTV (three tests since August according to the file’s history) and the rows of green ticks are on full display.
In total, 62 security vendors waved the green flag, at least until VirusTotal (VT) users move away from the ‘DETECTION’ tab and start looking at other tabs, marked DETAILS, RELATIONS, BEHAVIOR, and COMMUNITY, where confidence takes a bit of a nose-dive.
Whether VivaTV is clean, malicious, or simply misunderstood, an analysis from VT in-house sandbox ‘Zenbox‘ provides examples of what it believes the app tries to do.
The question for those installing this app, or indeed any other app, is whether requests for access to device data like these are required and/or reasonable for the software in question to function.
