Dish going after pirate's house

Dish Network won a large lawsuit against a pirate TV service, and is trying to get the house of the pirate running the service.

Back in 2021, Dish sued Nitro TV, a pirate IPTV service, and won a $100-million judgement. After the banks complying with the judgement reported little of the money the pirates made, Dish decided to go for the service owner house. 

Torrent Freak reports that the pirate is fighting the seizure, citing a Texas law that protects homes:

In a motion to alter or amend the judgment "to prevent a clear error or manifest injustice," counsel for Alex Galindo explained that his client bought the house in Friendswood in March 2020 and declared it his home.

"The Texas Constitution provides special protections for the homestead separate and distinct from protections afforded other types of property," the motion reads.

"Because constitutional homestead rights protect citizens from losing their homes, statutes relating to homestead rights are liberally construed to protect the homestead."

DISH evidence linked 99% of the house purchase price to sales of illegal IPTV subscriptions. The company argued that homestead protection is not available when a property is purchased with wrongfully acquired funds.

It's unclear how this will shake out. But for a streamer, it's another reminder that IPTV services are often, and probably, illegal. Keep the out of your Streaming Life.

Fire TV Sticks need lots of attention

I like the current batch of high end Amazon Fire TV Sticks (commonly called "Firesticks"). I don't like all the current ones, but the higher end Fire TV Sticks are pretty good.

My biggest issue with the previous Fire TV Sticks, and the low end current models, is that they slow down and are practically unusable after a while. Of course, there are ways to fix that, but to me, it shouldn't have to be fixed. The newer higher end (meaning more expensive) models don't need that much attention. That is, not as often.

That has to do with the specs, and a little bit with how the operating systems works. You can't do much about the OS -- I'll talk more about that in just a bit -- but the specs require some attention on the user's part more often. Tablo has an article that explains about this:

 Unlike many other streaming TV platforms, Fire TV devices require some periodic maintenance to keep them running at peak efficiency. This is due to a buildup of cached data which can clog the device's already small amount of storage.

Regularly clearing the cache of apps giving you trouble and removing old apps you don't use anymore is a good start. If that doesn't do the trick, a factory reset can also help.

If the device is more than 3-5 years old, go ahead and get a newer one, and a higher end one. They go on sale often enough that if you keep an eye out, you'll find a bargain and save some money.

The other issue that you can't really address is the operating system. The way the Fire TV Sticks (and every other device except Roku) handles onboard storage means you can run out of space if you have many apps installed. You have to choose which apps to remove to install new ones, after a period of time. Roku doesn't require that. It has a good way of managing the apps that the other devices don't.

But for the issue of slowing down performance, that tip should help improve your Streaming Life.

De-Googling your phone

Along my journey in My Streaming Life, I have found things unrelated to streaming that have surprised me. And, along the journey, I was reminded of things that I knew, but that weren't commonly realized.

One of the main things relates to privacy. It came about in a round-about way. I was looking to build a streaming device based on a Raspberry Pt device, and became reacquainted with Linux. That led me to considering more privacy, as Linux is a very secure and private operating system.

That eventually led to me consider privacy when it came to my cell phone. I spent a few months testing various devices and operating systems for phones. Which means you don't have to settle for iOS or Google's implementation of Android.

That last phrase seems odd, since Android is a Google project. However, the very basic Android operating system is open source and secure. It's the extra things that Google didn't make open source that complicate things.

Security expert Naomi Brockwell has a good video -- about a year old -- that covers de-Googling a phone.

[YouTube]

It's an interest study, and I used it when I tested privacy phones. I thought sharing it might be something worthwhile.

Newsmax free service ending

Newsmax isn't shutting down, but it will cost to watch the service soon.

There has been a carrier dispute with DirecTV, which includes U-Verse and DirecTV Stream, which has resulted in the conservative news channel being removed from those platforms.

DirecTV has added a new conservative news service, The First, to the lineups of those three platforms, softening the blow to conservative viewers.

Now, days after the dispute resulted in the loss of the service, Newsmax is ending its free streams, taking everything behind a paywall:

It should be noted that while the free version has been readily avaialable for Newsmax customers without said pay-TV partners the pay services have been paying Newsmax retransmision fees for the right to have the news feed built into its official channel guide along side other cable news channels like CNN, Fox News and MSNBC. The free feed may well have made the fees paid feel like too high a demand since they were unlikely to drive subscribers who were specifically looking for Newsmax.

Newsmax says that its service is the 4th highest-rated cable news channel in U.S. and a top 16 cable channel though according to Variety Newsmax TV is tied for No 72. Indie Wire had a similar story that placed Newsmax as the number 52 most popular channel in cable channel according to Nielson ratings. And just to fend off any accusation of “libberal Bias” Indie Wire acknowleged Fox News as the top cable channel as far as prime time viewers and Nielson Ratings.

Is this the break that The First was looking for? Or will this actually benefit Newsmax in the long run? How will DirecTV come out of this?

I have no idea. And it doesn't really impact me as I never watched Newsmax free service, nor use the DirecTV platforms. However, this may be of interest to some of you. In that respect, I hope you end up with a better Streaming Life as a result.

Bye bye Bally Sports?

A report came out this week indicating that Bally Sports was in serious financial trouble. The company is preparing to file for bankruptcy, according to the report. That would include the Bally Regional Sports Networks (RSNs).

The company called Diamond Sports Group LLC, which runs Sincalirs sports channels, is reportedly $8.6 billion in debt. Sinclair is hoping to strike a deal to help them keep the channels operating thanks to bankruptcy.

In total, Sinclair owes $55 billion in sports-media rights, according to Bloomberg. A bankruptcy could put payments to the NBA and NHL at risk. It is being reported that Sinclair will skip a $140 million interest payment due in mid-February, starting a 30-day grace period for the company.

Sinclair is facing the perfect storm of paying a very high price for the old Fox Sports RSNs just as cord cutting was exploding. Now payouts from cable networks are reportedly drying up as companies are refusing to pay the high price Sinclair wants for its Bally Sports RSNs.

This is not good news. Well, it certainly seems like it's not. Perhaps the long term effect of losing Bally Sports RSNs will be positive, but that remains to be seen. I was going to try the Bally Sports streaming package during baseball season, if the Braves are available that way. Now, I'm not sure how I'll get the Braves back into my Streaming Life.