HiVid represents one of Second Life’s most glaring open secrets: a massive unauthorized movie distribution service masquerading as a legitimate service. With nearly 10,000 titles listed for sale at just $2 per movie, complete with unlimited viewing and free shared access, the service openly defies industry standards. The telltale signs of piracy throughout their catalog, from streaming service watermarks to content exclusive to other streaming platforms.
I recognize that this post will ruffle some feathers, and a lot of people in the community will be upset with me for even entertaining the idea of covering this, but we need to have an honest conversation about what’s happening here. While major streaming platforms charge $20-30 for permanent access to a single new release, HiVid offers the same at fraction of the cost, all while operating without any visible business entity or any terms of service.
Investigation Transparency Notice
As part of my investigation, I have shared my complete findings with many of the major production studios whose intellectual property is being sold by HiVid, as well as with the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center and the Motion Picture Association’s Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment.
While this article focuses on publicly verifiable aspects, I have also uncovered and documented additional evidence and findings that I cannot responsibly disclose at this time to prevent potential misuse and obstruction of any potential investigations being carried out by the interested parties. All findings have been shared with the relevant authorities and production studios.
I reached out to HiVid with a list of questions prior to publishing this article, but did not receive any replies. I also reached out to Linden Lab with a high-level overview of my investigation but I did not receive any response despite multiple attempts. I will update the article with their responses if either party get back to me.
For questions regarding the investigation, please contact hivid-investigation@slnotes.com.
What is HiVid?
Before we dive into why I believe HiVid is distributing movies without authorization, let’s go over what HiVid is, and how it works.
HiVid is a movie streaming service in Second Life that requires its own inworld TV to be used. Customers purchase this TV for L$1,299 (approximately $5), which lets them browse, purchase and stream movies directly from their Second Life home.
Once a resident purchases the HiVid TV, they gain access to their catalog of close to 10,000 movies, each priced at either L$399 (roughly $1.5) for older titles and L$499 (around $2) for recent releases, including movies that have just come out. This pricing is suspiciously low compared to real streaming services – something we’ll have a closer look at later in this post.
The HiVid TV is advertised as including features such as:
- Unlimited viewing of purchased content with no expiration date
- Synchronization feature allowing multiple residents to watch movies together
- The ability to have friends watch your purchased movies with you at no additional cost
- Weekly rotating complimentary movies
- A request system where you can request movies not currently available in their library
HiVid operates entirely within Second Life, conducting all transactions in Linden Dollars and maintains no presence outside Second Life. There is no official website and no real world business entity attached. All customer interactions, from browsing, watching and purchasing movies, all takes place within Second Life.
HiVid is far from a small one-man operation, below is an organization chart of HiVid based on the staff list available at their inworld store location. To the best of my knowledge, this information is accurate as of the time of this blog post being published.
Update as of 2/22/2025: One of HiVid’s staff members reached out to me in confidence informing me that nobody at HiVid other than the owner has any knowledge of how HiVid operates or obtains their movies. They also went on to explain that they are instructed to respond with specific answers when asked about the legality of the movies. As a result, I have decided to redact all staff names except for the Developer and Owner of HiVid.
Some movies sold by HiVid, specifically those sold as Meipons are provided with transfer rights, allowing the customer to watch the movie and then re-sell the movie once they’re finished watching it. HiVid allows the renting of a market stall at their main location for customers to list and re-sell the movies.
HiVid also sells franchise kits for L$30,00 (around $120). For this price, the franchise business get the required vendor objects, access to sales tracking tools and can appoint store managers as needed. The owner of a HiVid franchise make 10% commission on sales and can offer discounts up to 5%. Interestingly, they can’t advertise that their prices are lower than the main HiVid store, even though they’re allowed to have discounts — a bit confusing if you ask me.
International Distribution Rights
This section alone could probably be the entire blog post, as it exposes what is perhaps the most fundamental impossibility of HiVid being a legitimate distributor.
One of the biggest red flags about HiVid is their de facto worldwide distribution of close to 10,000 movies with no geographical restrictions in place whatsoever. To understand why this is impossible, we need to look at how movie distribution actually works in the real world.
Movie distribution rights are incredibly complex and are typically negotiated on a territory-by-territory basis. Even streaming giants like Netflix, with their massive resources and industry connections, must navigate the complexity web of regional licensing agreements.
This is why Netflix’s catalog varies significantly from country to country, and why you have probably been met with the frustrating “This title currently isn’t available in your country” message whenever friends from across the globe sends you a link to a Netflix movie.
The process of securing distribution rights even for just a single movie for one specific country or territory involves extensive negotiations and massive financial commitments. At a high level, these agreements will typically include specific terms such as:
- Release windows (when the movie can be shown)
- Territorial limitations (where it can be shown)
- Duration of rights (how long the license lasts)
The make-believe reality that HiVid can offer unlimited worldwide access to thousands of movies, while charging just $2 per title, isn’t just unlikely, it’s impossible. Why? because this would require:
- Negotiating with every major studio and thousands of independent producers.
- Securing global rights that even industry leaders such as Netflix and Amazon can’t obtain.
- Managing compliance with varying media laws across the globe.
- Maintaining legal teams across multiple territories.
The complete absence of geographical restrictions in HiVid’s service isn’t a cool feature, it’s a clear indication that they’re operating without any legitimate distribution rights at all. Any Second Life resident can purchase and watch any movie from their store regardless of their physical location, something that no legitimate streaming service has ever been able to offer outside of their own productions.
Unrealistic pricing structure
HiVid prices are unrealistically low. Movies released in 2023 or earlier are listed at L$399, whereas movies released in 2024 or later (including newly released movies), are listed at L$499.
At the time of writing this blog post, the average exchange rate, as listed on the LindeX Exchange Market Data page is L$252.7 / USD, meaning that a 2025 or 2024 movie is being sold for just short of $2 and a title from 2023 or earlier comes in at just around $1.6.
This pricing is suspiciously low when compared to legitimate digital movie retailers. Major platforms such as YouTube, Apple TV, Amazon Prime and Microsoft Store consistently price new releases between $19.99 and $29.99 for the permanent access option. For example, the recently released “Flow” movie from 2024 is currently listed at $19.99 on both Amazon and Apple, and “Moana 2” from 2024 is listed at $29.99 across Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and Youtube, yet at HiVid both movies sells for $2.
What makes this pricing disparity even more weird is that HiVid includes features that none of the major platforms offer. Typically movie streaming services restrict viewing to the individual user, or household while HiVid allows customers to let their friends watch the movies with them at no additional cost.
When asked, HiVid customer service claims that they ‘pay a fee for every movie that is watched’ but fail to provide any evidence to support this claim. Taking market pricing into consideration, I don’t think there’s a single production studio out there willing to license even a single stream at the prices HiVid charges, let alone unlimited streaming and sharing.
Streaming Service Logo’s and Platform-Exclusive Content
The most compelling evidence comes from the movies themselves. I documented hundreds of instances of streaming service watermarks and intro logos appearing in HiVid’s offerings, strongly suggesting these movies were ripped directly from other platforms rather than obtained through legitimate channels.
When you purchase a movie from legitimate services, you never see Netflix’s distinctive intro sequence or Apple TV+’s glowing logo animation at competing services. Yet, HiVid’s library is filled with streaming service identifiers. I’ve documented movies beginning with intro sequences from Netflix, Apple TV+, Hulu, Paramount+, OutTV Originals, Amazon Originals, Lifetime Movie Club, and others, and mind you, I have only sampled a fraction of their selection.
Just as concerning is HiVid’s offering of platform-exclusive content. Streaming services often invest heavily in exclusive productions that are only available through their own platforms. Yet HiVid’s catalog includes numerous exclusive titles.
Let’s take Netflix for example:
- Chris Rock: Selective Outrage from 2023
- Iliza Shlesinger: Hot Forever from 2022
- 13: The Musical from 2022
- Ricky Gervais: SuperNature from 2022
- Taylor Tomlinson: Look at You from 2022
Similarly HiVid offers “They/Them” from 2022, a Peacock exclusive, and “Disfigured” from 2008 exclusively available on Amazon Prime Video. These are just a few examples among many – all being sold for next to nothing.
How could HiVid have legally obtained distribution rights to content that is exclusive to other platforms? They simply can’t. It once again just highlights that HiVid appears to be operating illegally, distributing copyrighted content without authorization.
Watermarks from known piracy sites
If the streaming service intro sequences weren’t enough, the situation becomes even more blatant when we look into HiVid’s animation category of movies. Throughout my investigation, I have documented numerous instances of movies bearing visible watermarks from well known unauthorized anime streaming websites such as 9anime and Anix.
These watermarks remain visible throughout the entire movie, making it crystal clear that these copies were sourced directly from the unauthorized streaming websites, and we’re not just looking at unauthorized distribution here, we’re looking at HiVid redistributing content that was already pirated by other sources in the first place.
9anime and Anix no longer exist today as they were taken down by MPA/ACE subpoena’s, for more information on the specifics of the takedowns please check the below articles from Torrentfreak
- Article featuring information regarding the Anix.to takedown
- Article covering the takedown of 9anime, and 9anime later resurfacing as AniWave
No terms of use or subscriber agreements
What are my rights once I purchase a movie? What are the rights of HiVid? How many times can I watch a movie? What happens if HiVid shuts down its business tomorrow?
These are just some of the questions that would typically be answered by the terms you agree to when purchasing a license to stream a movie or sign up for a streaming service. Here’s a few examples:
And these are just a small portion of the legal documentation customers are typically presented with and agree to when signing up, purchasing a title or subscribing to streaming services.
Here’s the thing though: ‘purchasing’ a movie from HiVid is buying into an illusion. Without any terms of service or user agreements, you have zero legal protection for your investment. What you’re getting isn’t a legitimate license to a movie. If HiVid disappears tomorrow, your entire movie library goes with it, with no recourse, no legal standing, and no protection. After all, how can you claim rights to something that was never legally sold to you in the first place?
While customers of legitimate services such as Netflix, Amazon, and Google are protected by legal agreements, HiVid customers operate purely on blind trust, there are no safeguards in place at all.
No indications of being a legal entity
While I would have been happy to order a financial report from Moody’s or a similar credit rating agency, HiVid does not provide any business information at all, yet they are somehow able to license and sell close to 10,000 movie titles at a global scale.
Despite significant efforts in searching for legal entities doing business as HiVid, I was not able to find any registrations anywhere in the world. While there are a few entities doing business under the name HiVid, none are in the business of selling streaming access to movies.
You would think that a business with global distribution rights to more titles than Netflix, MAX, and Disney+ would at the very least maintain some kind of business presence outside of Second Life.
For now, I think it is fair to assume that there is no real legal entity behind HiVid.
Mapping HiVid’s library
When I first began this investigation, I started by manually documented each movie HiVid offers in its catalog. This approach quickly proved impractical given the sheer number of movies listed for sale. As of February 1st, 2025, HiVid’s catalog contained approximately 9,767 movies available for purchase.
After realizing the futility of my manual attempt at documenting the library, I shifted my approach to focus on understanding technical infrastructure. By analyzing the network packages between the Second Life viewer and HiVid’s infrastructure, I was able to quickly throw together a python script that would ultimately help me document their entire catalog.
Given the sensitive nature of my investigation at the time and to ensure I didn’t cause any disruption to their service, I made sure to implement aggressive throttling in my script. This meant that my automated data collection process took nearly 15 hours to complete, but it resulted in a comprehensive database of their entire library – pretty neat!
The next phase involved cross-referencing the scraped HiVid data against legitimate distribution channels. I signed up for IMDbPro and started gathering detailed metadata for every title in HiVid’s catalog, including information about production studios and official distributors for every single movie sold by HiVid. and once again, Python to the rescue.
This process revealed some crucial evidence: across their entire catalog of close to 10,000 movies, HiVid is not listed as a distributor for a single title.
My work on data collection and documentation continued close to a week, and some very interesting technical details started to surface, but as it includes information that could be considered crucial in potentially ongoing investigations by the intellectual property owners and authorities, I will have to cover those in a later blog post once I am certain it won’t obstruct any ongoing efforts taking place.
Having the main distribution company and list of distributors for each title in the catalog helped me in prioritizing which production studios to reach out to, and equally importantly helped me build a solid piece of the overall documentation.
The Movie Industry’s Blind Spot
One of the most puzzling aspects of HiVid’s operation is how they have evaded the legal teams of major film studios for three years. The entertainment industry typically acts swiftly (and aggressively) against unauthorized distribution, so why hasn’t HiVid faced similar scrutiny?
I think Second Life’s unique nature creates the perfect blind spot. Despite a dedicated user base, Second Life remains obscure to mainstream industies. Major brands that once had a presence left a long time ago, I don’t think they really understand how Second Life works these days.
Traditional anti-piracy efforts focus on channels like websites and p2p technologies. The virtual world and the Linden Dollar economy probably seem alien to the industry. Buying virtual TVs, rezzing them and then watching movies on them might not fit the typical patterns they look for.
As mentioned earlier, I have actively been documenting my investigation and have shared all evidence with the production studios, authorities and the Motion Picture Association. Whether these efforts will finally prompt action remains to be seen.
What about Linden Lab?
A question I continue to ask myself is how HiVid has managed to operate openly for three years without any intervention from Linden Lab. When confronted about the licensing, one of HiVid’s representatives responded saying that “Linden Lab is well aware of the legal parameters of HiVid as we have been open for 3 years.” But this only raises more questions than it answers.
When I reached out to Linden Lab on February 10th with a high-level overview of my investigation and asked them to confirm HiVid’s statement, I received no response. A follow-up email sent on February 13th was also met with silence.
I’m not a lawyer, and my legal knowledge is primarily limited to contract law and EU regulation. While some people may bring up the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and its safe harbor protections regarding inaction after becoming aware of infringement, I think there’s a much simpler point: wouldn’t it be smart to take action to protect your platform’s reputation, regardless of legal requirements? Allowing potentially infringing content to be sold openly could signal to legitimate content creators that their rights aren’t being protected.
Some may ask whether Linden Lab is in their right to remove content that they suspect infringes upon someone else’s intellectual property, and to that the answer is yes they can. Not only they list “infringing or unauthorized content” as an example of Prohibited Content in their Content Guidelines, they also specifically call out that they can remove any content as they see fit:
“We may remove any Content or listing, or change any Content rating that we, in our sole discretion, determine violates these Guidelines. We may restrict or delete Content, or suspend or ban your account(s), if we, in our sole discretion, determine that you or your account(s) have violated this policy.”
Furthermore, they specifically state that “Linden Lab may elect to remove allegedly infringing material that comes to its attention via notices that do not substantially comply with the DMCA.” in their Intellectual Property Infringement Notification Policy.
Linden Lab’s historical hands-off approach to content monitoring is well known, but with their recently announced changed stance on content protection, could this be an opportunity for them to put their money where their mouth is? Time will tell.
Our Critical Thinking Shouldn’t Stop at the Login Screen
The success of unauthorized content sellers in Second Life, whether they’re dealing in furniture, clothing, skins, or as in this case, movies, relies heavily on our willingness to suspend disbelief. We need to remember to apply the same critical thinking in-world as we do in our everyday lives.
Ask yourself, would you trust a website offering unlimited worldwide movie streaming for $2 per title across the entire library?
By supporting unauthorized sellers and services, we’re not just risking our own purchases, we’re actively contributing to a system that undermines the entire premise of Second Life.
So the next time you encounter a deal that seems too good to be true, pause for a second and apply the same scrutiny you would on any other online platform. A legitimate business, virtual or not, should be able to provide a basic level of transparency, terms of service and in cases like this, verifiable business information.
When a service claims to have worldwide distribution rights to thousands of movies at a fraction of the market prices, while also not willing to explain their licensing model or provide basic legal documentation, it’s time to ask yourself if that L$399 purchase is supporting something you would want no part of in the real world.
So what now?
This investigation started out with me trying to document a problem, but somewhere along the way transformed into a commitment to drive real change.
I will continue to raise awareness both within and beyond the Second Life community and I will continue to engage with Linden Lab, the intellectual property owners, and the authorities when necessary.
Change won’t happen overnight, but with continued pressure and awareness, my goal is to ensure that the issue can no longer be ignored, not by Linden Lab, and not by our community.
What About All the Other Services?
While this blog post is primarily focused on my investigation of HiVid, they aren’t the only ones operating in this manner. As part of my investigation I have identified similar services, and while they may not be as known, they’re not going to be left unnoticed
To those of you running similar services, I want to be clear: my investigation doesn’t end here. If you’re distributing or selling content you don’t have the right to sell, it’s only a matter of time before you’ll find yourself and your business as the subject of blog post like this one.
If Linden Lab started cracking down on Copyright infringement we wouldn’t have SL. It’s built on copyright infringement. The only good I see coming of this is corporations having even more control over what happens both inside and outside SL, and SL users having even less freedom while using it. You’re only doing greedy corporations work for them.
Yes, and isn’t posting names of the avatars (some literally use their RL names in their avatar names) a violation of sharing personal info in a public space?
People all over the world are sharing their RL TV screens while watching a movie or TV show on platforms that allow screen sharing. Including educational facilities. I do agree with the above as well. We come to SL to enjoy freedoms we do not get in RL, or to enjoy a life we were denied due to a disability we didn’t ask for… They are not selling any ACTUAL movies, but watching a movie streamed from someone’s RL home…
Also my RL movie theatre is showing RL Movies for $5 a person on Tuesdays through the next 2 months.
Hey, thanks for the comment. The publicly available names of the avatars are advertised as as representatives by the business itself. I carefully made sure that anything displayed and shown is only reflecting what is at public display when you enter the HiVid store.
I understand that having a disability is not something that anyone ever asked for, and I very much feel with the people struggling.
My goal has never been to contribute in taking away joy from the users. Unfortunately someone is profiting off selling thousands of illegally obtained copies of movies, content that they have no right to sell – disabled or not, we as the community should not accept that behavior and instead consider that content being sold this way could ultimately, one day, be what ends up shutting down the virtual world we all love.
Your RL movie theatre may sell access for $5, but do you also get to take a copy of it with you home afterward to rewatch?
No one is taking it home, they’re watching what someone else is sharing. Discord, Kast, etc. are allowing multiple users to watch one person’s personal screening from their own computers/TV. In a special event in SL, over 50 people were watching a screening that was being shown on ONE person’s computer, using Discord.
You’re comparing something equally illegal on a single case basis, to a criminal enterprise raking in thousands of dollars on a regular basis. How do you even defend this? Is this Ben? Barry?
Hivid is not only thriving on stolen content it is, paying its staff peanuts (less than $2 and hour), requiring staff to install software to rip content including the recently introduced subtitles to be extended to all movies, introducing (introduced) membership plans which previous perks/ features like access to the vault of reduced price movies, lucky chairs, loyalty discount tiers which were available to all are now being limited to those who not only pay for the illegal content but also pay a monthly fee to hivid.
The greed of this “creator” knows absolutely no bounds, and people saying so in their group are being muted and threatened to silence them, while the hard core of Hivid sycophants are openly praised and applauded for calling out anyone who questions the cult.
The labs recent clampdown on copybotting and content/ copyright theft is likely going to come back and bite them in the ass over this, the level of hypocrisy is astounding!
A Senior Hivid staff member has openly confirmed that they have discussed the “business” with the lab and that they have made the lab aware that they do NOT SELL movies, they sell people the ability to access those movies and each individual who accesses them does so at their own risk. This is not indicated anywhere in the Hivid store, nor their market place listings for the tv, nor any other documentation that they provide with the sale of either tv or movies. In fact it is quite to the contrary, almost everything they say and do leads one to believe that you are buying the movie.
The lab has let this go on for years, now there are thousands of SL residents that have paid money into this system, there are a significant number of people that have over 500 movies bought and paid for, that is somewhere in the region of 250000 lindens per person, or $1000US
I have in excess of £600US invested in it before I realized what the situation was, the staff when questioned stated that Hivid pays royalties on every movie watched, the inclusion of netflix exclusive content alerted me to the fact that this is clearly a complete lie!
The man is nothing more than a thief, he is making a vast fortune from selling people something he does not own, nor has any rights to distribute in any shape or form, and he continues to refine the money extraction process to get more and more out of the people that fell for his deception.
How do you know he doesn’t own any of those movies? Have you been to his house? I personally have over1000 DVD’s & VHS’s sitting currently in storage. Waiting on a new house to move them to. I used to be a member of Columbia house that sent you movies monthly and BMG for CDs. So very easily to have tons of movies at home to stream to others. It isn’t hard to set up something like that. As far as whether or not he has rights to share or distribute them. Again, speculation, as we don’t know who he is in RL or what his real life consists of.
Strangely, the ownership of a copy of a movie doesn’t mean that you have the right to then digitize it making essentially endless copies of your one, and charge others to use it. That’s basically resale however you want to phrase it. The right extended to you as far creating digital duplicates go as far as a personal duplicate, and definitely not making back 100+ times what you paid for it. The money flow is what’s drawing the attention here.
I am not Ben or Barry, he is a dude, I’m not dude… But I’ve watched countless of movies on discord from other people’s systems. I have no idea what Ben or Barry does except, provide a service for those who cannot afford, even a movie ticket in RL, can enjoy. What did they do to you that was so horrible. They’ve been open for years now and yet no one bothered them until now? Suspicious, I think.
oh no the poor movie studios. this is small potatoes, and provides great enjoyment and roleplay for folks in SL. You’re really going to ruin this for everyone?
All of the movies i’ve paid to access via hivid are movies i already own, but don’t have a reliable way to watch synced with my partner, and the roleplay of going through an in-world video store is a lot of fun and provides value, so i’m happy to toss them a few lindens for a movie i already own.
This literally does the movie studios minimal harm, and provides enjoyment for people, and you’re out here narcing. You’re gonna be that guy?
Eris, the thing is, it’s a bunch of stolen content they didn’t have a right to sell you access to, sold at far greater than operating costs to you making them a tidy profit. This was always going to be shut down as they continued to try to make take home money in amounts that had them living comfortably over content they didn’t own or have a right to provide access to. They’re likely to see years of legal problems from this, and lose far more than they tried to gain, and you are the one who ultimately threw your money away over what could have been had for less than the cost of a single HiVid movie at the same level of legality. The same level of rp short of “going to the video store” is still possible for a one time cost at greater fidelity with no lost features. With the advent of discord and private individual streaming platforms, blatant money grabs like HiVid are a thing of the past and should be shut down so more people don’t continue to buy vaporware.
Seems like this is oh so conveniently coming at a time when Hivid just changed their lucky chairs and started doing memberships. I suspect some people have gotten their panties in a bunch and suddenly they’re doing this to make Hivid pay. The thing is, There are platforms that we all pay for IRL that have sharing as well, so this is nothing new. I’m betting this is just cause people are whining over the change related to lucky chairs. you used to get free movies and now you don’t without a membership. My guess is that’s what this is all about. There’s always a handful of twats that have to ruin things in SL for everyone, that’s what I’m seeing here.
I completely understand why you would think that, but it all really comes down to coincidence. I started my investigation on the 26th of January while the subscription service was announced by HiVid on the 2nd of February.
I find it hard to care but you are right it doesn’t make sense LL have permitted this for so long.
That’s it over now though, of course nobody will be refunded.