The authorities are clear: in their process to end piracy, not even the pointer will be saved. But, in particular, those who are going to fall hardest are going to be those who, like the protagonist of this news, have been determined to turn IPTV piracy into an immense business. Taller trees are falling every time.
You’re probably familiar with the name Beast TV, which became, in its own right, one of the largest IPTV piracy networks in the world. It closed in 2020 following a court request after an intense investigation in which agents forcefully demolished the platform. But it seems that it did not disappear completely.
Beast TV’s successor falls
At the time when, at the end of 2020, the closure of Beast TV was revealed, one of its main resellers, who was in the top 10 billing thousands of dollars, refused to lose his job. He quickly posted a message online, on his own domain, where he explained in a video that Beast TV had not disappeared.
That reseller had decided to take over the network and offer the same service, but keeping all the revenue clean and acting in collaboration with a partner. All the customer contacts he had, as well as those he could possibly get, received the emails and information from him to switch to the new service. Chances are he didn’t keep all of Beast TV’s original business, but he did keep a lot of it. However, in the end he too has been captured.
The plan had loopholes
It cannot be said that there is no risk in, just when the authorities announce that a pirate IPTV service is closing, publishing a video where you say that it is not true and that everything will remain “the same.” I mean, isn’t this the worst time to do something like that? Most likely, that day, the agents took note of what they were seeing and decided to keep an eye on this reseller in case he ended up becoming another big fish to hunt down. As if this were not enough, the pirate in question published the video on his website with his real name signing the news. Did he find no miscalculation in all of this or was he excited about becoming the pirate king and didn’t notice the red flags?
It is possible that what John Gwaka Magembe, the person in charge of this “new” pirate IPTV service, thought was that the investigation against him would be very delayed or would even come to nothing. And it cannot be said that he was wrong about the first, since several years have passed until, finally, the Dish Network has gotten to work to put an end to it.
And they have done it relying on the facilities that are being given to them. Because the sale of pirate IPTV service does not take place behind the scenes, via Telegram or through other types of private communications. No, instead, the pirate has the rates published on the web, from where they can be easily contracted to access IPTV applications. And, of course, what the researchers have done, as they acknowledge, has simply been to contract the service and wait to see what doors it opens for them.
It has served them much more than they expected. The process has led them to know the names of the two involved, the aforementioned John Magembe and his partner Joyce Berry. It has also given them access to the private user interface offered to subscribers of the pirate service. Therefore, without difficulty they have been able to obtain an enormous amount of data and information, all of which is crucial to carry out the investigation and be able to put the legal spotlight on them.
Now they are facing a lawsuit that could mean they have to pay a fine that they want to be in the millions at an exaggeratedly high level. It is said that lawyers could demand up to $500 million in legal damages or compensation for the illegal business that this pirate and his partner would have managed. The two websites mentioned in the lawsuit are channels4cheap.com and purchase-iptv.com, both of which are still available at this time.
The curious thing is that the forecasts indicate that the trial and case of John Magembe and his “successor” of Beast TV will end before the case of the original website, which is still active. This has gone through different phases in which the accusation of the pirates is turning out to be quite chaotic. Much has been written about it and some of the periods of the dispute have been strange, such as one of the two defendants having to spend 60 days in a correctional facility, but sleeping there only from Friday night until Monday morning. However, the case remains open. In the PDF of the complaint to Magembe available here A multitude of data has been included, such as those confirming its involvement as a reseller in the original Beast IPTV service.
What the authorities want is for the pirates to see that the situation is serious and that, obviously, no one should try to continue an illegal IPTV business that has already been closed. John Magembe’s punishment will possibly be used as a warning to other potential people who may be in his situation.
