Journey into the streaming niche

[SweetWaterr]

What i know is if you receive DMCA google gets a notice of you and once you receive too many DMCA's it can lead to your website being removed from google.
I don't know if this is all the information but it is possible.

I don't have too much faith of being on Google. I will invest a little in AdWords in the beginning, but after that I will rely more on promotions via Reddit, forums, word-of-mouth or other type of ads.

 

[jojowonder]

Hey guys,

I've decided to take the direction of movie & series streaming.
My business model is slightly different than the majority of similar websites, since I want to stay away from any kind of ads, and go for netflix-like subscriptions instead.

What I have done so far:
- a very hard-worked web-crawler that finds and downloads all the movies & series all over the internet, including torrents
- a proxy network that similarly retrieves and tests all the free proxies that can be found available on the net (which then are subsequently used for retrieving the movies)
- a solution to store and serve the movies (in a fragmented and encrypted way) using various services like Google Drive, OneDrive, etc.
- a service that retrieves the entire TMDb database using their APIs (with daily updates)
- the retrieved movies/series are matched against the TMDb data in order to get poster images, backdrops, stills, ratings, reviews, plots, etc.
- the website that cleanly showcases all the available movies/series based on popularity and recommendation algorithms
- unregistered viewers can freely watch first 25% of any movie, after which they'll have to login into their accounts
- newly registered users can watch everything up to 30 days
- after 30 days, a user must apply for a subscription (between 2$ per month and 10$ per year)
- everybody can add subtitles in their own language (which will get saved and made available to everyone else)
- payments: only BTC

What is next:
- mobile app
- Plex plugin
- Kodi plugin
- Chromecast optimizations
- trying to not get caught
- getting feedback and improving as I go along

What do you think? What are the areas I should pay attention to? How can I get in trouble?

Umm.. how about ... do you have the license to stream content? If not...you can get sued big time Not to mention the costs of lawyers..

 

[alonelywriter]

I don't have too much faith of being on Google. I will invest a little in AdWords in the beginning, but after that I will rely more on promotions via Reddit, forums, word-of-mouth or other type of ads.

Okay .. It will take time but I wish you good luck. I wish you succeed in making your website a brand such as 9movies or fmovies or solarmovies.

 

[SweetWaterr]

Umm.. how about ... do you have the license to stream content? If not...you can get sued big time Not to mention the costs of lawyers..

I am always curious how do they get to know the person behind it?
I mean, we have the hosting, which can lead to the IP of the web server, which can lead to the IP of the movie streaming server, which can lead maybe to a DB server or who knows, even to the IP that the person used during coding, but to me it's very weird how do they incriminate that person. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, my WiFi has been hacked by the neighbors, plus I have a virus that exposes my IP as a proxy and that was used by the chinese to do this, plus I'm a auto-mechanic, I have no idea about computers. How can they prove who exactly was behind an IP physically at a certain moment?

 

[TomTheCat]

I am always curious how do they get to know the person behind it?

There's a Danish movie called Bedrag (in English Follow The Money). If you want to find someone, and you don't succeed by known means, all you have to do is to follow the money!

 

[jojowonder]

I am always curious how do they get to know the person behind it?
I mean, we have the hosting, which can lead to the IP of the web server, which can lead to the IP of the movie streaming server, which can lead maybe to a DB server or who knows, even to the IP that the person used during coding, but to me it's very weird how do they incriminate that person. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, my WiFi has been hacked by the neighbors, plus I have a virus that exposes my IP as a proxy and that was used by the chinese to do this, plus I'm a auto-mechanic, I have no idea about computers. How can they prove who exactly was behind an IP physically at a certain moment?

Beats me. But someone who is an expert / or has a PhD in IOT can explain how. All I know is that there are logs that store (online) events — this log says what you did and when as well as tie it to an IP.

Sure... you can say “it wasn’t me”. And you can use a different IP / or try an mask events... but what about the money trail?

To simply say “it wasn’t me” but collect money and have your name tied to a business collecting money for services that pays you is good enough to subpoena for more information / investigate.

or maybe not... ? I am assuming it would be.. maybe it’s not that easy. Plus, no one simply investigates for free....

 

[SweetWaterr]

There's a Danish movie called Bedrag (in English Follow The Money). If you want to find someone, and you don't succeed by known means, all you have to do is to follow the money!

Beats me. But someone who is an expert / or has a PhD in IOT can explain how. All I know is that there are logs that store (online) events — this log says what you did and when as well as tie it to an IP.

Sure... you can say “it wasn’t me”. And you can use a different IP / or try an mask events... but what about the money trail?

To simply say “it wasn’t me” but collect money and have your name tied to a business collecting money for services that pays you is good enough to subpoena for more information / investigate.

or maybe not... ? I am assuming it would be.. maybe it’s not that easy. Plus, no one simply investigates for free....

Follow the money principle would not really work in a world of using Tor + Bitcoin Mixers + Offline wallets + Fake names, emails, phones everywhere.
And these are quite basic stuff. That's why I always wonder what happened with really smart people being caught and sued. What am I missing...

 

[TomTheCat]

That's why I always wonder what happened with really smart people being caught and sued. What am I missing...

Small mistakes they did and didn't realized.

 

[Bayrem Jebali]

Hey guys,

I've decided to take the direction of movie & series streaming.
My business model is slightly different than the majority of similar websites, since I want to stay away from any kind of ads, and go for netflix-like subscriptions instead.

What I have done so far:
- a very hard-worked web-crawler that finds and downloads all the movies & series all over the internet, including torrents
- a proxy network that similarly retrieves and tests all the free proxies that can be found available on the net (which then are subsequently used for retrieving the movies)
- a solution to store and serve the movies (in a fragmented and encrypted way) using various services like Google Drive, OneDrive, etc.
- a service that retrieves the entire TMDb database using their APIs (with daily updates)
- the retrieved movies/series are matched against the TMDb data in order to get poster images, backdrops, stills, ratings, reviews, plots, etc.
- the website that cleanly showcases all the available movies/series based on popularity and recommendation algorithms
- unregistered viewers can freely watch first 25% of any movie, after which they'll have to login into their accounts
- newly registered users can watch everything up to 30 days
- after 30 days, a user must apply for a subscription (between 2$ per month and 10$ per year)
- everybody can add subtitles in their own language (which will get saved and made available to everyone else)
- payments: only BTC

What is next:
- mobile app
- Plex plugin
- Kodi plugin
- Chromecast optimizations
- trying to not get caught
- getting feedback and improving as I go along

What do you think? What are the areas I should pay attention to? How can I get in trouble?

Good luck mate, I'm interested ''store and serve the movies (in a fragmented and encrypted way) using various services like Google Drive, OneDrive, etc. '' is it the script that encrypts the link or what?

 

[SweetWaterr]

Good luck mate, I'm interested ''store and serve the movies (in a fragmented and encrypted way) using various services like Google Drive, OneDrive, etc. '' is it the script that encrypts the link or what?

Thanks!

What is basically happening there is retrieving the movie from net and saving it in a scrambled way: one byte on Google Drive, next byte on OneDrive, next byte here, next byte there, encrypting the data to be saved as well. That way it won't ever get deleted by Google for instance, because they only take down identifiable copyrighted content, not random series of bytes in some data files.

Retrieving the movie in a watchable form from the cloud providers is done by knowing what data/bytes to assemble and decrypt and from where.
Then a link to the assembled video is created, that looks much like a proxy to the original source of the movie (e.g. http/proxy.to?9movies.com/titanic.mp4)

 

[NjSquad]

Follow the money principle would not really work in a world of using Tor + Bitcoin Mixers + Offline wallets + Fake names, emails, phones everywhere.
And these are quite basic stuff. That's why I always wonder what happened with really smart people being caught and sued. What am I missing...

From what I read "follow the money" would still be an issue for you in 2 different ways:

1. If you make a ton of money via bitcoin it would be very difficult to "cash out" and actually use that money without suspicion from LE.

2. If you add ads to your site you would need to sign up to some kind of ad network. If for some reason logs from the ad network gets seized by LE (via subpeona or raided) then they can trace it back to your identity.

For #2 if you signed up with a fake identity you would still run into issues like #1 where if you receiving too many money from an unknown source you get questions from LE.

I've been thinking about this a lot and I find it very difficult to actually cover all your bases in the long term. Especially if you live in the US/EU.

 

[SteveWhite]

It will work, peoples pay if you provide servers that are always up & have some good database,

If u r only taking money in BTC No big deal. Do not even think about doing 1 paypal sub. ( if u want proper sleep ).

Good luck.

PS: I am doing the same thing in a different niche & it works, its just a matter of hard work to get things first on net. but i do not depend on seo for that site. i do seo on a public site that is free & place premium bait in that public site.

# regarding btc payout, there are good ways to launder that into a legid money via a fake selling site & proper invoicing.

 

[wyhgood]

people who pay btc know internet better than 99% else, and they know a lot of streaming site no reason to pay you

 

[NjSquad]

It will work, peoples pay if you provide servers that are always up & have some good database,

If u r only taking money in BTC No big deal. Do not even think about doing 1 paypal sub. ( if u want proper sleep ).

Good luck.

PS: I am doing the same thing in a different niche & it works, its just a matter of hard work to get things first on net. but i do not depend on seo for that site. i do seo on a public site that is free & place premium bait in that public site.

# regarding btc payout, there are good ways to launder that into a legid money via a fake selling site & proper invoicing.

That's cool you got it working. I'm currently planning out how to set something similar up.

For your note about btc payout on a fake site: Do you have any resources I can look up to learn how to do this? Also do ad networks even pay out in BTC?

 

[darksoultrip]

Subbed, what a sweet threat sounds like you're really prepared. I would like to do something similar in adult.

 

[SteveWhite]

i think adstera, admaven does btc for all its users i think.

it doesnt matter what private ads you are using, you just need to show them u r traffic & willing to take the handling / service charges for btc.

they will help you if u show you have decent traffic & willing to take the handling / service charges for btc. if they need to buy btc eg from localbitcoins.com eg 3000$ it will become surly around 2950$ or even below + they are going to spend their time in it.

you just need to talk to the ad support. but they will not care for it if your traffic is not high, my monthly is just under 4m only for public* site.

many guys in movies touching 500k traffic easy daily, check the movies journey here, if u become 1 of those guys, convincing private ads to pay u in btc wont b hard.

PS : You are better off keeping the private site content only for premium users, that way the attention u get to ur premium site will be low & the dmca to ur file hosts of premium site will be low, just my view.

 

[NjSquad]

@SteveWhite can you go into more detail about the "fake selling site & proper invoicing" part? Where can I learn more about doing this properly (especially making the invoices look "proper")?

 

[SteveWhite]

Its all about thinking outside the box, book selling, digital apps selling, sevice selling, game rss selling, there are lot of stuffs. you just need to think outside the box.

im doing game rss selling since i used to do have yt channel for gaming & know how to do things in that department.

I would say do not hire anyone for the fake site or invoicing, keep it simple & neat, learn how to do things, especially the maintaining invoice part with business account. You do not want to go to sleep thinking what will this guy do if we ever have a fallout ? Its ur choice how to proceed there.

Your business paypal should have ur fake selling site infos.

Example :.
1. Create the fake selling site of ur choice.
2. Sell btc in localbitcoins.com or other places where u got verified account. ( you need to have the lowest rate since buying with paypal is minimal due to high exchange rates ).
3. make the person send payment to ur paypal id. ( always create invoice matching that amount with fake selling site stuffs ).
- I tried to make the guys from localbtc to pay the direct invoice but one time, payment got held & paypal told me the sender has to click goods received link in payment. ( long story short i got screwed for 700$ ) so i wouldnt recommend direct invoice payment method. its ur choice.
- If you are lucky you will get some users from ur country itself & you can have easy imps transffer without the headace of paypal. ( you can also avoid paypal & hold btc for such direct bank transffer users its far easier ).
4. Most important thing, government is ur friend if you keep them happy. use the invoices to pay tax properly without avoiding shit.
- in my country its gst, i do not know about other country.
- i would say hire a ca, i pay just 150$ for ca to handle taxes for a whole year. i just forward invoices each month. ( my ca believes my fake selling site is real ). you should keep things like that too.

 

[NjSquad]

Thank you for writing this all out your teaching me so much It all makes sense up to #3 "make the person send payment to ur paypal id". When you create a paypal for your business then it would be tied to your identity. Wouldn't LE be able to trace the money to the transaction on localbitcoin?

 

[SteveWhite]

LE ? u mean paypal?

when the person in local bitcoins askes for payment information you are going to give your paypal invoice or papal id, ( make it like [email protected] or just [email protected] its not imp. )

The person is going to login to their paypal,.... send payment, ur id & send payment to u. ( or pay paypal invoice sent by u ).

paypal know about bitcoin sales only if the guy who got btc from you contacts them & says he sent u money to buy bitcoins. i dont see any way of that happening.

PS : When u are selling bitcoins, you are always supposed to tell the buyer to leave the notes field empty, ( if you mention anything about bitcoins, i will cancel btc transaction ). you need to say that while giving payment info during every transaction. i have it in my payment info TOS by default.

The reason i took 700$ loss instead of approching paypal to get my money from the ahole that refused to click goods received is this. i dont want paypal knowing about me selling bitcoins. i would rather loose 700$ than expose my little secret to paypal.
Many users are taking directly to paypal without issues from what i hear in lbtc, but i dont not want to take that risk when things are going smooth for me.
There are risks in every bht method, you just need to ignore the small losses & keep moving.


If you mean Leegal Authorities,
- They got no reason to snoop around if you are paying your taxes properly without showing you spent big expensive amount on some on crap so you wont pay tax for so n so amount.
- Even if they do, there is nothing to find, you are going to file tax related to ur invoice of selling site.
- Money goes from the sender paypal to ur paypal. There is no middleman of lbtc involved. Its just a normal paypal transaction. There is nothing to track.