Follow Us or Subscribe to the Feed

RSS ReaderAdd to Google Reader or Homepage Subscribe via email

AddThis

Pin It!

Friday, February 10, 2023

#USTVGO is gone!

Popular TV Streaming Service USTVGO Shuts Down * TorrentFreak



Popular TV Streaming Service USTVGO Shuts Down

Torrent freak.com Home > Piracy >

Popular live TV streaming portal USTVGO appears to have shut down its service. A brief message on the site says "Sorry, we are closed," leaving millions of users with plenty of unanswered questions. While the reason for the sudden decision is unknown, rightsholders and anti-piracy outfits already had USTVGO on their radar.

A few days ago, USTVGO users were presented with a disappointing message.

Out of the blue, the site's clean homepage, which usually carries links to over a hundred channels including ABC, CBS, NBC, and Nickelodeon, was replaced with just four words; Sorry, we are closed.

Mystery Disappearances

When the message first appeared, some had hoped that the downtime would be temporary. But, as time passed, a short hiatus seemed more and more unlikely.

It's not just the main USTVGO.tv domain name that's affected either; many alternative points of access, including ustv247.tv and watchnewslive.tv, display the same "we are closed" message.

To discover more about the shutdown, TorrentFreak reached out to USTVGo's administrators. At the time of writing we're yet to receive a response. The site's email addresses no longer work since USTVGo's mail servers have disappeared. The platform's official Discord channel has also been shut down.

The above suggests that the people behind the site don't want to be reached. That leaves former users and the public with unanswered questions, which will undoubtedly lead to speculation.

On The Anti-Piracy Radar

A statement on USTVGO's website claimed that it was legal 'to watch' its streams. However, the site itself was clearly not seen as a legal streaming service, as the streams were (re)broadcasted without permission from rightsholders.

Despite its popularity, USTVGO never appeared on the U.S. Trade Representative's list of notorious pirate sites, but it was in the crosshairs of copyright holders and anti-piracy groups.

In recent months, the TV streaming website was targeted in DMCA notices sent by ESPN, Major League Baseball, and NBCUniversal, who all had their channels listed on the site.

Anti-piracy outfit Alianza, which represents major TV broadcasters including DirecTV, Discovery, Fox, HBO, and Sky, has also been on to the service for a while. In a 2021 report produced by Nagra, USTVGO was listed as one of the most popular TV streaming sites.

threats

The screenshot above estimates that the service had roughly two million visitors in early 2021, but traffic continued to grow. More recently USTVGO reportedly enjoyed 16 million monthly visits, with almost three quarters coming from the US.

Pressure?

Without official word from the site's operators, we can only speculate about the reasons behind USTVGO's sudden closure. However, in cases like these, some type of legal pressure seems a likely option.

There is no evidence to suggest that a third party has taken control of USTVGO's domains, but perhaps the owners were approached with a cease-and-desist notice.

For the site's former users, whose favorite streaming portal has already gone, the cause of the closure is irrelevant. Some will likely flock to USTVGO alternatives such as 123tvnow, 123tv, tv247, and others.

USTVGO
ustvgo

Saturday, January 21, 2023

Stewart Copeland takes us through The Police’s Humble Beginnings

THE SET LIST for the Police's first concert consisted of seven songs, and drummer Stewart Copeland estimates they got through all of them in about six minutes. "We were fast," he says. With the exception of "Landlord," which Sting cowrote, and a cover of the Animals' "It's My Life," Copeland tells Rolling Stone, the songs were "all my concoctions."

Monday, December 19, 2022

#Muchachos: How #Argentina’s Favorite Song Became the #WorldCup’s Soundtrack

How Argentina's Favorite Song Became the World Cup's Soundtrack - The New York Times
Argentina's players sang with their fans after winning the semifinal game against Croatia on Tuesday.
Richard Heathcote/Getty Images
How Argentina's Favorite Song Became the World Cup's Soundtrack

The song, Muchachos, Ahora Nos Volvimos A Ilusionar, has been a constant refrain in Qatar.

Lionel Messi apart, arguably nobody has played a more prominent role in Argentina's run to the World Cup final than a 62-year-old musician and a 30-year-old teacher, neither of whom is anywhere near Qatar. Between them, though, they created the song that has become the soundtrack to Argentina's games and an earworm contracted by anyone who has been in Doha over the last month, or watched any of the tournament on television.

The song, Muchachos, Ahora Nos Volvimos A Ilusionar, has been adopted as an unofficial anthem not only by Argentina's vast army of traveling fans — around 40,000 are expected to attend the final at Lusail today — but by the players themselves: Instagram videos of their dressing room celebrations after every victory have invariably featured a joyous rendition of the song.

Its popularity, doubtless, has something to do with the fact that its two verses hit all the major notes of Argentina's campaign: it is a homage not only to Messi but to Diego Maradona; it pays tribute to the Argentine soldiers who died during the Falklands War of 1982; it draws in the country's various disappointments in international tournaments in recent years; and it goes into its key change with a taunt directed at Argentina's major soccer rival, Brazil.

But it is also a familiar tune to most Argentine fans. Various Argentine club teams have their own bespoke versions of Muchachos, Esta Noche Me Emborracho, a 2003 hit for the rock band La Mosca Tsé tsé, led by the 62-year-old singer Guillermo Novellis. A (relatively) cursory attempt to trace its genealogy would suggest that fans of Boca Juniors were the first to adapt the melody for their own purposes, in this case mocking its fierce rival, River Plate. Within a couple of years, Racing Club, a team in Avellaneda, had an interpretation, quickly followed by its rival, Independiente. In the endless round of call and response that marks Argentine fan culture, both were dedicated to denigrating the other. The most famous iteration, though, probably belonged to River Plate.

Sign up for the World Cup Briefing.  The world's greatest sporting spectacle returns in November. Get our daily analysis of every match and the stories from Qatar that you won't see on TV.

That it became something approaching a national anthem is down, largely, to a 30-year-old teacher named Fernando Romero. Together with a friend, he changed the lyrics once more in the days after Maradona's death last year, turning it into a tribute to the player widely regarded as either Argentina's first or second greatest. When the two friends were filmed singing it outside River's Monumental stadium, during a game against Bolivia, the footage quickly went viral. Messi became aware of it: he named it, soon after, his favorite soccer chant. So, too, did Novellis, who got in touch with Romero and volunteered to record and release a version with his lyrics in the buildup to the World Cup.

Even Novellis, though, is a little surprised by its success. La Mosca has a curiously fitting relationship with soccer. Maradona was such a fan that he invited the band to play his 40th birthday party in 2000. And seven years later, another devotee asked if they would do a turn at his 20th birthday party. Messi and Novellis have been in occasional contact ever since.

Now, the song has not only reverberated around Lusail, again and again, on Argentina's way to the final, it is currently number one on Spotify in Argentina. It has been streamed 4.4 million times in just a few weeks. (The original is currently at almost 14 million.) Novellis has been interviewed by media outlets across the world; a campaign was launched to fly Romero to Qatar, though he turned it down, suggesting the country had "more important things to address." The story, as Novellis told La Nacion, is "easy to explain, but difficult to understand."

Rory Smith is The Times's chief soccer correspondent, based in Britain. He covers all aspects of European soccer and has reported from three World Cups, the Olympics, and numerous European tournaments. @RorySmith

LIVEUpdated 53m ago

World Cup

SnareThis

MasterSearch

Subscribe via email

Enter your email address: