Another potential reason is that they may want to have some kind of other user tracking to measure the effectiveness of their ads. Either way though, they could have handled this on the server side and made this much easier. It’s hard to complain when the server refuses a connection because $business_reasons. That would be fine. Blocking due to Geo-IP, a required Pluto client, etc would make sense. But that can all be handled with a technical solution.

But a DMCA takedown for a list of URLs just seems so heavy handed and wrong. It’s like they only know one way to solve a problem. Or they have too many lawyers.

Not to mention - why did the MPA do this as opposed to Paramount?

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The reason is that they probably have distribution rights for the US/North America, so if they're streaming to other locations, they can be sued. So they need to at least appear to be 'taking steps to prevent' such things.

I think it's available in most of Western Europe and Latin America.