While 4K streaming has been available for some time through key vendors like Netflix and Amazon, pirates have yet to successfully extract the content—until now. The High-Bandwidth Digital Copy Protection (HDCP) version 2.2 or higher is believed to be secure today, but there are recent signs that pirates have discovered a way to bypass the protection.
A few months ago, the first Netflix 4K content leaked, but soon got swept under the rug after the glitch was fixed. However, more releases began to appear online, suggesting that there is a loophole that allows pirates to circumvent the copy protection and extract the content.
Until now, this was impossible to do. There were a few releases floating around with low bitrates and a ton of pixilation, but none compared to true 4K. The new releases, however, are the real deal and include Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle and pilots from Edge , Good Girls Revolt, Highston, One Mississippi , and Patriot . Another series of 4K leaks include Netflix’s Jessica Jones . The file sizes are well over 10 gigabytes per episode, a scope much larger than traditional HD-releases.
Downloading a 4K release from Amazon or Netflix and retrieving a pirated copy is not easily done, necessitating the question of how these groups are able to circumvent the copyright protection. Experts believe that Amazon’s Fire TV and Roku 4K may be likely sources as they are not well protected as some think. Amazon’s Fire TV uses the weaker HDCP 1.4b protection and 23.976 frames/s, which only supports Amazon 4K and not Netflix. Roku recently released its new streaming player with 4K support and native refresh rate switch, which is compatible with Netflix’s 4K library.
Whatever the source may be, the stream of new releases from 4K marks a new era of high-quality video bootlegging that’s sure to please pirates and upset copyright-enforcers.
Source: TorrentFreak
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