The world’s largest illegal sports streaming platform was shut down — though perhaps not for long.
Spanning some 120 different web domains, Streameast was not a single entity but a “piracy brand” drawing between 1.2 and 1.6 billion users, mostly from Europe and North America, and generating $6.5 million in ad revenue annually, according to the Motion Picture Association.
In 2019, the MPA pegged the cost to the US economy of video piracy at $29.2 billion each year.
Investigators traced crypto flows to a Dubai shell company and an Egyptian IP address, arresting two. But they expect copycats to emerge: “When we take one down, five more will come up,” the MPA’s anti-piracy director told The Athletic.