Much to the dismay of the entertainment industry, the illegal streaming and downloading of movies and TV shows have become more and more frequent with each passing year. One popular free streaming website is MovieRulz, and in this article, we’ll discuss whether you should watch movies on this platform and if you’ll get in trouble for doing so.
As you may or may not know, law enforcers and the entertainment industry, in general, have taken copyright violations more seriously in recent years. They are doing this to try and protect indie or small-time content creators, film producers, actors, and everyone else in this industry trying to earn a living.
When sites such as MovieRulz upload new movies before their official release, fewer people will go to their local cinema and pay to watch the film. As a result, this practice negatively affects the movie and entertainment industry, not to mention the revenue of your local cinema, it’s even better to use a platform like Netflix or Firestick and support your small indie producers and actors
All About MovieRulz
Now, let’s talk a bit more about the website in question. MovieRulz is a popular website that uploads movies without the approval of the creators. In other words, it’s an illegal streaming website very similar to Moviesda.
The platform is popularly known for its Telugu and Malayalam movies. However, it also has a decent number of Western and international films. Since you can watch all the site’s content without paying, it’s one of the leading websites people go to for illegally streaming movies.
It doesn’t help that MovieRulz is also optimized for smartphone use, making it all the more accessible to a vast number of people. The website even has a section dedicated to reducing a movie’s video quality to speed up the download time.
How Long Before MovieRulz Gets Taken Down?
Without a doubt, we can expect that law enforcers will get rid of MovieRulz’s domain sooner rather than later. India, the United States, and other countries are cracking down on illegal movie streaming platforms, and punishment has gotten more severe.
As such, don’t be surprised when one day you’ll find that MovieRulz is no longer online. Although, there’s also a good chance that MovieRulz will set up a new domain and site name to try and prolong the inevitable.
Video Piracy: How Does It Happen?
Technically, there are three gateways to video piracy: simulcasts, video downloading, and credential sharing. No matter the kind of piracy, the revenue of the creator and everyone who worked so hard to make the film great will be majorly affected.
After all, why would anyone pay for something when they could get it for free in the first place? This is the kind of mindset that many people hold, especially since we’ve gone through some difficult times as of late.
Simulcasts
One of the leading forms of video piracy comes in the form of recording and redistributing simulcasts of live streaming. Let’s use live sports as an example. Live sports are one of the most pirated live events ever. A study by sportspromedia states that 51% of sports fans choose to watch pirated streams instead of through official means.
Video Downloading
With just a simple Google search, you’ll see that there are many tools available online that can make downloading a video as easy as pie. It can be as simple as simply pasting a URL and hitting enter for the tool to start downloading your video of choice.
Video streaming platforms typically do their best to protect their content by using encryption. However, these platforms generally don’t pay that much attention on key protection. As such, pirates take full advantage of this fact and put in a lot of effort to find the encryption key.
Once this key is within their grasp, pirates can easily convert encrypted files into raw files.
Sharing Credentials
Credential sharing is prevalent, especially for popular streaming services like Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, and others. Users typically subscribe to one account and then share that account among friends and family.
With that in mind, there are several ways users can pirate video content through credentials:
- Token theft—If you didn’t know, streaming applications typically use tokens to identify their users. Pirates can copy these tokens over to other devices, giving them access to the platform’s content.
- Password theft—Password theft takes place when your account credentials get hacked or stolen. When this happens, the hacker or thief can sell your information to pirates.
- Bypass restrictions—When pirates successfully hack streaming services, they can mess around with the platform’s set restrictions. For example, let’s look at Netflix; the platform restricts the number of devices allowed on one account depending on the subscription plan. By tinkering around with the settings, pirates can change the restriction and allow multiple users.
- Neverending trials—This last one is quite popular, as many users create fake accounts and use different credit cards to have unlimited access to free trials.
The Impact of Piracy
As mentioned, piracy can heavily affect the entertainment industry. Aside from that, here are some other repercussions of digital piracy:
Loss of Revenue
As we’ve said before, streaming or downloading unauthorized movies or TV shows can seriously hurt the potential revenue of content creators. According to a study reported by TechCrunch, piracy could cause Netflix to lose $192 million in monthly income. This is significantly more than either Hulu or Amazon, as both are only losing $45 million a month.
Fewer Funds Allocated to Production
Because creators now have lower revenue due to piracy, this ultimately reduces their desire to invest or allocate money towards production. For example, the cancelation of NBC TV’s American psychological horror-thriller series Hannibal was due to ‘poor ratings.’ However, in 2013, the series was the fifth most illegally downloaded TV show.
Hannibal producer Martha De Laurentiis even said piracy played a significant part in the show’s cancelation.
Increased Security Risks
If you’re one of those people who regularly access free movie streaming websites, you might not have considered this before. There’s a big chance that when you access such sites, you’re putting your personal information and device at risk.
Typically, pirates spread viruses and malware using content they upload on the internet. One out of three piracy websites contains malware, according to a study by RiskIQ, a Cybersecurity firm.
What Happens When You Stream Illegally?
In recent years, big media companies and federal agencies have been slowly cracking down on big-time backdoor streaming rings. However, as a viewer, will you also get in trouble by watching pirated content on the internet?
Downloading or torrenting copyrighted content onto your devices without proper permission and approval from the creators is illegal. There is no doubt about this. As for illegally streaming movies online, you could receive a fine of $750 or more when caught.
Conclusion
We’d rather be safe than sorry, and we recommend that you do the same. While copyright laws vary per country, some regions are much stricter, and you could face a hefty fine or a punishment much worse than that.
