TWO apps used to watch premium TV and football matches for free on Fire Sticks have been blocked, according to users.
The pair of apps provide links to hundreds of channels from across the world, ranging from movies to sports.
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They can’t be downloaded from Amazon’s own app store, instead people side-load them onto their Fire Stick and use a VPN to avoid detection.
The two apps in question are Flix Vision and Live NetTV.
Users have started complaining on social media that the pair no longer work, suggesting Amazon may have blocked them.
It’s not clear why at this stage.
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AFTVNews suggests that the block may have come about due to concerns over alleged malware hiding on the apps.
Amazon has been approached by The Sun for comment.
The tech giant has been increasingly accused of not doing enough to prevent illegal streaming.
Earlier this year, broadcasting firm Sky hit out at Amazon for not doing enough to tackle piracy, saying that the problem is costing the industry “hundreds of millions of dollars”.
“If you speak to friends and colleagues, [or] you watch football, people will know that you can get jail-broken Fire Sticks, and you can access pirated services on Fire Sticks,” Nick Herm, chief operating officer at Sky said in March.
Herm accused Amazon in particular of not doing “enough engagement to address some of those problems, where people are buying these devices in bulk”.
He also believes that modified Fire Sticks “probably” make up “about half of the piracy” in the UK.
Amazon has previously said that it is “committed to providing customers with a high-quality streaming experience while actively promoting a streaming landscape that respects intellectual property rights and encourages the responsible consumption of content“.
Warning over ‘jailbroken’ Fire Sticks
Illegal streaming can be delivered by a number of devices by one of the most common are ‘jailbroken’ Fire Sticks, which means a third-party media server software has been installed on to it.
The software most commonly used is called Kodi.
It can grant users unrestricted access to new features and apps the normal version of the device wouldn’t allow – but it is not legal to use in the UK.
But it becomes illegal when a box is used to stream subscription channels for free.
It is also illegal to buy or sell these modified devices which have become known as “fully-loaded” – a term that describes how the software has been altered to allow access to subscription-only channels.
“These devices are legal when used to watch legitimate, free to air, content,” the government said at the time.
“They become illegal once they are adapted to stream illicit content, for example TV programmes, films and subscription sports channels without paying the appropriate subscriptions.”
