What is YTS, is YTS Legal in South Africa? YTS is not legal in South Africa. The purpose of this article is to inform you about this torrent site. ‘YTS’ is an abbreviation of “YIFY Torrent Solutions” and is amongst the most infamous piracy sites in South Africa.
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What is YTS?
YTS also known as YIFY Torrents is an infamous website best known for distributing large numbers of movies as free downloads through BitTorrent.
The original YIFY Torrents or YTS was founded by a computer science genius, Yiftach Swery in 2010. The name “YIFY” is derived from the name of the website’s New Zealand founder, Yiftach.
The original YIFY/YTS website was shut down by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) in 2015. However, numerous sites imitating the YTS/YIFY/ brand still receive a significant amount of traffic.
Emerging websites imitating YTS have been providing internet users in South Africa with free movies and TV series download. South Africans prefer to download free movies to avoid spending on cinema halls and paid subscriptions. While movie piracy websites kill the film industry, these torrents sites continue to leak new movies, sometimes even before their official release dates.
YTS in South Africa is one of the most favourite torrents sites for netizens who download free latest movies online. These sites have large audience who are loyal to their movie sites.
is YTS Legal in South Africa?
No, YTS is not legal in South Africa. However, the torrents websites are not blocked and can be accessed in South Africa.
Movie piracy is considered illegal in South Africa, USA, the United Kingdom, India and many other countries. Although the South African government hasn’t banned sites such as YTS, this doesn’t mean you are not breaking the law by streaming and downloading movies from such sites. In other countries, governments have failed to stop the leak of movies on such sites.
To fight the bans around the world, YTS illegal movie site keeps changing its domain extension from .xm, .com. .uz, .pn, .it and many more. This unstoppable piracy site has been challenging the global authority by continuing its illegal behaviour and leaking a lot of TV shows and movies, which has been terrorizing the filmmakers.
Is it illegal to stream or download YTS movies?
According to the piracy law in South Africa, if an individual is found streaming or downloading copyrighted movies and TV shows from the YTS website knowingly, it’s considered to be a criminal act. If you are taken to court, the court will assume that you knew of the infringement because in most cases the movie contains a watermark or notice which indicates that it is a copyrighted work.
In South Africa, you can be fined or be arrested and spend between six months and three years depending on the seriousness of the offence. People circulating pirated content on illegal torrent websites can also face a jail term in South Africa.
Any criminal charges faced by YTS website
Accessing pirated movies on any website or a torrent for that matter, remains illegal in South Africa. The original YTS site was shut down in 2015 due to a lawsuit coming from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
The American trade association company filed a multi-million-dollar lawsuit against the website’s founder, Yiftach Swery, accusing him of ‘facilitating and encouraging massive copyright infringement’.
According to various news outlets, this news came as a surprise to some people, such as a spokesman for the New Zealand Screen Association who would have expected the website to have been operating from Eastern Europe, the case with some other past movie torrent sites. Swery was able to settle out of court a month later, signing a non-disclosure agreement. Yiftach did not resist legal action in any way, and co-operate with authorities as needed.
Movies Leaked by YTS website
This YTS movie download website has been pirating several TV shows and movies. YTS.vc has leaked almost every Hollywood blockbuster movie. Movies leaked by the website includes the following; Avengers: Endgame, The Lion King, Ford v Ferrari, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Parasite and many more.
Recently the site has been convicted of leaking movies like Dolittle, Joker, Bird of Prey and many more. Besides these popular movies, the website is also responsible for providing free Amazon Prime, Ullu, Hulu, Hooq, Netflix and other entertainment websites’ content as well.
Popular Netflix’s series Stranger Things series, was also leaked by this website.
Disclaimer – Quick Read Magazine does not aim to promote or condone piracy in any way. Piracy is an act of crime. In South Africa, under the Copyright Act of 1978, criminal copyright infringement can land offenders in jail for up to five years and result in a fine of up to R10,000. This article aims to inform the general public about piracy and encourage them to be safe from such acts. We further request you not to encourage or engage in piracy in any form.