00:00Amazon is blocking illegal streaming on its Fire TV Stick.
00:04Amazon has officially decided it's had enough of being the unwitting hero of the sports piracy underworld.
00:10According to The Athletic, Amazon is rolling out a device-level crackdown on third-party apps
00:15that let Fire TV Stick owners stream unpaid sports already live in France and Germany and going global soon.
00:22Consider this your heads up before your cousin's totally legit football stream disappears.
00:26For years, the Humblefire TV Stick has carried a double identity.
00:31On the surface, a convenient way to binge the boys.
00:34Underneath, it is a favorite vessel for side-loaded apps offering bargain-basement access to live sports.
00:40Amazon blocks piracy apps in its store, but users skirt that by installing from outside Amazon's walled garden, sometimes with a VPN.
00:48The party may be winding down.
00:50TechRadar notes this device-level ban means even the classic VPN plus side-load equals victory hack will not save you.
00:57The crackdown lands weeks after Amazon introduced the Fire TV Stick 4K Select, which swapped Android for Linux.
01:03Amazon says the new stick features beefed up security, which might be code, for we saw what you were doing and we're done now.
01:10An unnamed Amazon spokesperson delivered the official corporate scolding.
01:14Piracy is illegal.
01:15It exposes users to malware and creators deserve to get paid, etc.
01:20The usual, but with a new twist.
01:21Amazon is now blocking piracy apps even when they are downloaded from outside its store.
01:25The shift comes as sports piracy continues to climb.
01:30A YouGov sports survey commissioned by The Athletic found that roughly 4.7 million UK adults, about 9% of the population, have streamed sports illegally this year.
01:40Unauthorized websites are first, but Fire Sticks are a comfortable second.
01:44Looks like the world's most popular little HDMI dongle is finally trying to clean up its reputation.
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